SPAIN - Many visitors to meetings indsutry tradeshow EIBTM in Barcelona this week were forced to rearrange their travel plans, as snow falls in the UK and other northern European destinations played havoc with flight schedules.
London Excel´s CEO Kevin Murphy was one of those delayed by several hours on the outward journey, while Lufthansa struggled to bring in large groups of hosted buyers from Germany.
The talk on the show floor on the final day of the show, at least on the UK stands, was of how to get home, with Gatwick airport closed.
EIBTM show director Graeme Barnett said that business was continuing and the show was definitely going on, with 57,303 scheduled appointments.
A survey of 289 show attendees showed that 78 per cent said they now used Web 2.0 tools in their events and meetings. Facebook came out as the most useful social media tool in the survey, with 46 per cent endorsing it. Linkedin recorded a 13 per cent score and Twitter three per cent. Twenty per cent of those polled said their preferred social media solution was the event´s own website.
Two-thirds of those surveyed said their companies were active on one or both of the major networks, Facebook or Linkedin.
