AMERICAS - Reed Travel Exhibitions has taken the decision to rotate its Americans Meetings and Events Exhibition (AIBTM) between Chicago, Illinois and Orlando, Florida from 2013.
Currently, the show is based in Baltimore, Maryland, where Reed ran its inaugural show in 2011 and where the 2012 show opens next week.
Convention bureau Choose Chicago will host AIBTM from 11-13 June 2013 at McCormick Place. In 2014, AIBTM will move to Orlando, Florida and the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) from 10-12 June 2014.
“We want to acknowledge and thank the great city of Baltimore for its invaluable contribution to AIBTM,” says Portfolio Director of the IBTM Global Events Portfolio for Reed Travel Exhibitions, Craig Moyes. “Following the lead of many associations in the US that move their events to a different place each year, we will now have the flexibility to maximise the enormous potential delivered to AIBTM by both Chicago and Orlando.”
He says the move and rotation of AIBTM will offer all stakeholders access to new business opportunities in two key gateway citiesthat are themselves major hubs of the meeting industry.
He stresses the core brand values of AIBTM will remain the same: “business and education will continue to serve as the key drivers and will be supplemented by peer to peer networking events over a three-day period”.
Chicago offers 35,000 hotel rooms in the downtown central business district and is served by two international airports. Chicago is home to 400 corporate headquarters and is a two-hour flight from most North American destinations.
The OCCC is the second largest convention facility in America, and each year attracts more than 200 events. Some 116,000 hotel rooms are available in Orlando and its international airport offers Remote Airline Check-in (RAC) services at the OCCC.
Following the news that UK-based Centaur Exhibitions had confirmed Steve Knight as the Exhibition Director of its new show, The Meetings Show UK, his former employer Reed Travel Exhibitions confirmed a reshuffle to plug the gap left by Knight, the man responsible for RTE’s AIBTM show in Baltimore. Graeme Barnett is Interim Event Director for AIBTM.
Any exhibition-related news? Email exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
