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IMEX America Means $2.2B in Business

By Jessie States December 06, 2011

Astounding really. It seems orders placed onsite at IMEX America amounted to US$281 million, according to an exit survey of hosted buyers, and an expected $1.9 billion worth of orders will be placed with exhibitors within the year. The average value of orders placed by hosted buyers during the show was $496,000, with post-show average orders expected to be worth $1 million each. This means that IMEX America hosted buyers have—or will—generate a total of $2.2 billion in business with show exhibitors.

Two thousand hosted buyers attended the first-ever IMEX America at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas in October. Three-quarters were from the U.S., 5 percent were from Canada and the remaining hailed from 34 other countries, with Brazil, the U.K., Germany, Mexico, India and Australia accounting for significant numbers. Seven hundred of the show’s buyers answered the survey (a representative 35 percent sample).

Of the 2,000 hosted buyers attending, 65 percent came from the incentive, agency or third party industry sector, 25 percent were corporate buyers and 11 percent were from associations. Half (53 percent) of hosted buyers were responsible for budgets in excess of $1 million.

A total 1,867 companies exhibited at IMEX America representing 147 countries. With U.S. destinations accounting for 27 percent of all booths, these results bode well for U.S. suppliers as well as those international exhibitors that attended to capture new business. 

Likewise, an exit survey was also conducted among IMEX America non-hosted buyers (known as buyer attendees). This buyer group placed business in the region of $89 million with exhibitors during the show, and expects to place $538 million of orders within the next 10 months. These figures support the feedback from hundreds of exhibitors who testified that both hosted and non-hosted buyers came to the show with business in hand, ready to be contracted.

Meanwhile, MPI saw more than 1,100 participants (both hosted and non-hosted buyers and exhibitors) at its Smart Monday education day. Leveraging its MeetDifferent-style of professional development, MPI education received strong satisfaction results. And hundreds of delegates enjoyed MPI keynote speakers in general sessions each morning of the show. MPI's experience and expertise also led the development of the IMEX America mobile app, which had thousands of users interacting with education and data daily with their smartphones and tablets.

And to round-out the strategic partnership, IMEX America hosted its official party in conjunction with Pure Rendezvous, a fundraiser for the MPI Foundation that yielded more than $23,000, which will be reinvested in education and research for the industry.

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Conversation (4)

  • Anonymous December 06, 2011

    $281 million + another possible $1.9 billion in the next 12 months from hosted buyers alone. Those are certainly impressive numbers.

    I wonder how much of that would have been spent otherwise - without IMEX-America?

    Is there a more accurate way of validating the business value of meetings like IMEX-America or tradeshows like them? Are there other metrics, financial or otherwise, we should be tracking?

    As I've heard argued before, attendance is just a number. What it doesn't tell you is were the 'right' people in attendance? 

  • Jessie States December 07, 2011

    Excellent point, Anon. I'm not sure it's possible to really know the answer to that. Of course, the money on the table would be spent elsewhere. For the exhibitors, it's key that the money was spent with them due to their attendance, and for the hosted buyers it's a time saving metrics.

  • Anon December 07, 2011

    One way to measure it might be to ask buyers, hosted or otherwise, how much they would have spent in lieu of IMEX-America and subtract the difference. You might also ask if the money would have gone to another exhibitor. I get the time savings but is that sufficient justification? 

    Given the serious lack of measuring business value from your research, you'd think tradeshow stakeholders especially would be asking more pertinent questions. This ain't rocket science and not the first time a stakeholder has tried to determine the value of a business initiative. 

  • Kit Watts - IMEX team December 12, 2011

    We're constantly reviewing - and hotly debating - which metrics make the most sense in terms of a trade show's success. And, as Jess has suggested, success means different things to different IMEX audiences. Exhibitors still seem to measure return on investment primarily in financial terms - which means business secured at the show or in the following months. This is also why we communicate appointment numbers - because face-to-face appointments are generally the prelim to signing any deal. As for the numbers, we're also aware that these don't tell the whole story. However, it's often hard to convey quality - although 53% of buyers with budgets in excess of $1million suggests both quality and seniority in the majority of buyers.  The quality issue - and measurement - gets picked up in our careful vetting procedures. For example, we follow-up every single 'missed' appointment personally - and every criticism of quality too. When buyers are first accepted into the hosted program, they have to 'qualify' by giving details of meetings and events they have placed. We run checks and call venues to ask for proof that these events actually took place at the time and on the scale claimed. As for whether these volumes of business would have been done without IMEX America, again we have good anecdotal feedback from many exhibitors who market themselves assertively (if not aggressively) all year round in the US and they were very clear that the show attracted - and therefore allowed them to meet - active, high quality buyers they'd simply never met or heard of before.

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