SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.
The Meeting & Incentive Forum (M&I Forum), The Americas 2016, a four-and-a-half-day hosted buyer event held May 22-26 at the Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch, featured much more than a large number of one-on-one appointments matching U.S. meeting and incentive buyers with suppliers.
According to Paula Jurvanen, director of event operations for parent organization Worldwide Events, while the one-on-one buyer-supplier meetings are the heart of the program, networking and activity excursions offer a key opportunity to solidify business relationships outside of the conference room.
“It’s not only [about] the meetings, but [moreso] the whole experience during the week, with activities and the evening dinners in which all of our attendees participate,” Jurvanen said. “Of course the meetings are the most important thing, [but] following the meetings, which everyone does during the day—13 or 14 meetings, so it’s a quite-active morning—after lunch we leave for activities that we try to facilitate so that we have half buyers, half exhibitors. Of course the networking is key, but also it’s important people have fun and they have great experience together, and with these experiences they get to know each other for real, and that’s where the business comes from.”
Networking events at M&I Forum ranged from a golf tournament to an evening dinner event at Los Cedros Arabian Horse Ranch, to river rafting and Sonoran Desert Humvee excursions.
Split into segments that rotate in two separate sets of buyers, the event featured nearly 110 buyer tables and two sets of approximately 100 meeting and incentive buyers over the four-and-a-half days.
M&I Forum, The Americas is part of a larger component of global travel events, named M&I Forums, operated by Worldwide Events, a division of Big Worldwide, a travel, tech, events and media company.
The next M&I Forum, The Americas will be held April 23-26, 2017, at Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach in Cancun. It will follow a similar format, introducing U.S. planners to suppliers from across the globe.
“We run 11 events in a year, but in the U.S. we’re going to Cancun next year with this event,” Jurvanen said. “[This year was] the first time we met outside of [Florida], in Arizona. Next year we’re also launching a trans-Atlantic forum where we bring the European buyers to meet with the U.S. suppliers."
For more information, visit www.mi-forums.com.
