The Meeting & Incentive Forum (M&I Forum), The Americas 2016, a four-and-a-half-day hosted buyer event held May 22-26 at Arizona’s 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 one-on-one buyer-supplier meetings are the heart of the program, networking and off-site 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.
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.
George Randall, director of sales–the Americas for Worldwide Events, said that research conducted long before the meeting ensures that buyers and suppliers are connected with who they most want to meet.
“We take real care in making sure the right people meet with the right people, and that’s the whole philosophy of our business,” Randall said. “So that also extends to making sure that we [allow] the buyers and suppliers to select who they want to meet with, and then we bring them together for the one-on-one networking.
“This week 98 percent of the meetings—it’s actually 98.7 percent of the meetings—carry a preference … so both sides have said yes to the meeting. So that means everyone’s meeting exactly the right people, and making sure that they’re working with the right people for them and their future MICE business.”
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 a global supplier set.
“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 U.S. suppliers.”