(Pictured above: Shane Hannam, portfolio director for IBTM)
IBTM, part of Reed Travel Exhibitions, has announced the launch of a new business event, IBTM Asia Pacific. The event will take place April 6-8, 2020, in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Center and joins IBTM’s existing portfolio which includes IBTM World in Barcelona; IBTM Americas in Mexico City; IBTM China in Beijing; IBTM Arabia in the UAE and IBTM Africa in Cape Town.
IBTM Asia Pacific will bring together a high calibre group of international, APAC regional and local meeting planners and exhibitors for two days of prescheduled one-to-one business meetings, education and networking. The event will be under-pinned by IBTM’s sophisticated, industry-leading hosted buyer program, which creates personalized appointment diaries for hosted buyers and exhibitors to ensure that delegates only meet people with whom there’s a very good chance of doing business.
“Launching a new event for the Asia Pacific market is not only exciting for the IBTM brand, it is also supported by the fact that the region’s business events industry is expected to see the highest growth rate in the world to reach $441.1 billion by 2025,” says Shane Hannam, portfolio director for IBTM.
“It’s a market we know very well, and our research has shown that there’s genuine demand for a regionally focused event, both from our existing customer base, but also from the industry in general. It’s an exciting new addition to the industry calendar not only for IBTM, but also for the wider business events market.
“We’re confident that IBTM Asia Pacific will give us a focused platform from which we can service the ever-increasing demand both from the inbound and outbound APAC markets. Importantly, the event will also allow us to implement a strategic shift for our IBTM China event, which will re-focus on bringing together the highest quality Chinese buyers to meet with international exhibitors and international buyers to do business with Chinese exhibitors,” Hannam says.
“We congratulate IBTM on the launch of this new platform in the Asia Pacific region,” comments Senthil Gopinath, ICCA chief ececutive officer. “ICCA’s global membership is always looking for new opportunities to meet international associations and key stakeholders in the meetings industry and we are delighted to collaborate with ICCA’s long-term business partner on IBTM Asia Pacific. We wish the team all the best with the expansion.”
“Singapore is considered as APAC’s regional hub for the Business Events market and that, combined with its excellent infrastructure and long-standing reputation as a global business destination mean that it was the natural choice as our host city,” Hannam adds.
IBTM Asia Pacific will be helmed by Event Manager Michael Jones, who has been with Reed Exhibitions for almost six years. The marketing and hosted buyer program, which underpins the success of every IBTM event, will be managed by the experienced existing team based in Richmond, London, supported by Reed Exhibition’s teams in Singapore and Japan.
The event will be preceded by a day of local tours for international buyers and an evening drinks reception. Full details of the education sessions and networking program will be released in coming weeks.
IBTM, part of Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading showcase for the meetings and events industry (also known as MICE) with a portfolio of 6 global and regional events providing business solutions on 5 continents. They include IBTM World, IBTM Arabia, IBTM Africa, IBTM Americas, IBTM China and IBTM Asia Pacific. For more info, visit www.ibtmevents.com.
Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading travel and tourism event’s organizer, with a wide-ranging portfolio of 22 international events in 13 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. Its market-leading, business-to-business events cover all elements of travel and tourism, including leisure travel, luxury travel, meetings, events, incentives and business travel, as well as golf travel. For more info, visit www.reedtravelexhibitions.com.
