The three-day World Meetings Forum conference, organised by publisher MasExpos Congressos y Conventiones and conceived to shine a light on the Latin American exhibition and broader MICE industry, came at a time of increasing international focus on the Americas.
Earlier this year research by UFI indicated a clear shift in exhibition industry growth rates from Asia to the Americas, both regions having recovered well from the global financial crisis in 2010 and 2011. The observation, made after reviewing 10 editions of its biannual barometer ‘industry health-check’ survey, showed that after slower growth in 2012, the Americas is now home to the highest proportion of companies anticipating an increase in turnover for 2013. In addition, it is currently the only region in which respondents declared the impact of the economic crisis on their exhibition business is now behind them.
This geographic shift is further reflected in UFI’s organisation, with the global exhibition association recently formalising the creation of a Latin America Chapter to complement its existing European, Asia/Pacific and Middle East/Africa Chapters. The new chapter, formed with the Asociación Internacional de Ferias de America (AFIDA) recognises the growing importance of the Americas to the global exhibition industry and wider economy.
“After 10 years of vigorous expansion in Asia and the Middle East, this part of the world is now a top priority for UFI,” said UFI president Xianjin Chen at the time. “There is a lot of talk and excitement about Latin America, where we are seeing increased interest from our members around the world. This is no longer a market of tomorrow; it is clearly a market of today.”
UFI’s commitment to the region doesn’t end there. Andrés Lopez-Valderrama, president of AFIDA, has been appointed to the role of incoming president, effective from November 2013, with ascension into the serving presidential role in 2014.
Helping the wheels to turn
And so it was that the World Meetings Forum opened its doors at a time when the exhibition industry is ready and waiting. Drawing attention, at least this time, from companies primarily in north and south America, the seminar programme covered topics such as business expansion, exhibition format modernisation, geographic profiling and technology.
Outside the educational content, the purpose of the event, according to Masexpos publisher and CEO Rafael Hernandez, was to unify and improve the Latin American exhibition, convention and incentives industries. “The main idea of the forum is to gather people, gather leadership, gather ideas, analyses what is happening and bring down specific conclusions,” he told EW.
Day two closed with a meeting of association figureheads representing, among others, the IAEE, AMPROFEC, AFIDA and SITE. The meeting concluded with a three-step plan for expanding and refining regional event business.
Three steps to enlightenment
The first step for the associations is to target education and certification, as Hernandez put it: “To do business with the internationals, you need to speak their language. How can we help bring more people. The basis of these certifications are really structured and they have logical issues, but what happens when you take these certifications in new places? Maybe there are changes in the political, cultural and economic sense, so some things that might be logical for Americans might not work for people in Europe, in Asia or in Mexico.
“The importance of this certification is that if you want to be in this business you have to speak the language of the professionals,” he continues. “And one of the languages of the professionals is certification.”
This will of course build confidence among international organisers looking to invest in Latin America. An educated and qualified workforce will make the prospect of local partnerships more attractive to major international organisers.
“It is important to understand how it can be brought to the new generation looking to make careers in exhibitions, getting it into colleges and universities, in an easy way so that we can generate professionals.”
The second element is the sharing of statistics, information and hard data that can help the region see how it, and its member countries, are developing.
“We see that Clarion, UBM , Reed, Messe Nuremberg and Fiera Milano are coming to Mexico and we ask why? Why is that? Because we have strong GDP, and an emerging market that is growing because our economics are really stable and the perspective we have for the growth will be better in coming years.
The airline industry is growing as well, improving connections to the region. Now we’re in a global level. We could have in one meeting the chairman of SITE, from Johannesburg; the chairman of IAEE from the US, and the chairman of ICCA from Uruguay. Now the mix is really global,” he says, pointing out that today the chairman of most associations can truly hail from anywhere.
The third and final point uses the help of president and CEO of IAEE, David Dubois. Formerly of the PCMA and MPI, Dubois will engineer logical components. He will try to bring the CIC (Council), but in a way that suits the Latin American market.
We are in the hotspot, places like Mexico are emerging markets – so what about trying to bring about a CIC kind of group, with the leadership of the Latin American associations and work together.
Horses for courses
So with one down and increasing demand for future editions, where next for MasExpos and the World Meeting Forum? Well, already a schism has formed, but not to the detriment of WMF. With each of its three days given primarily to one event area, the event produced a natural lull for exhibition delegates sat in sessions aimed at conference and incentive organisers. Future editions of the event will be split between the exhibition and wider meetings and incentives industries, resulting in the co-located events World Tradeshows Forum and the World Meetings Forum.
But this continues the original vision of Hernandez, who claims that in today’s market of hybrid events there is a greater crossover than ever between the exhibition and meetings/incentive industries, and that delegates should be able to find value in educational sessions on both sides.
“We will have the World Meetings Forum and the World Tradeshows Forum. They say our way of making business is different, event though many trade have a strong education programme, conferences that they might charge entry for. And some conferences have a small exhibition component. People from Europe and Asia are really interested in listening how to improve and get more business in the Latin American market,” he explains. “They may have specific separate agendas, but in some social aspect we will gather together because the main idea is still the networking. Sometimes the trade show people have good ideas for the meetings people.”
This was first published in issue 3/2013 of EW. Any comments? Email
exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
