Arriving for their ultimate day at IMEX Frankfurt 2022, delegates and visitors have been offered a lot of takeaways from the first show to be held in three years after the COVID-enforced hiatus.

Shifts in priority

Chief among the discussion topics at the show were, unsurprisingly, tech and climate change, as well as community engagement and legacy building. For an industry that had to overnight embrace tech capability for survival in early 2020, as it returns to in-person formats much talk revolved around what this might mean for the format and resilience of future meetings. AMEX Global Business Travel announced that meetings booked for 2022 are up 200% as the return begins its surge, but they also identified a trend that 39% of these meetings in 2022 expect to be hybrid format, affirming tech’s solid embeddedness in the new meeting landscape.

Sustainability as a key issue has also been riding high on meeting planners’ minds, with AMEX Global Business Travel again identifying that topics around sustainability took the top three spots for corporate RFP asks, in particular addressing climate change being their No. 1 priority. IMEX are taking their own lead in this by stating that it is their aim to publish their own pathway to net zero by the end of 2023.

“We are committed not only to implementing best practices in event sustainability ourselves but also to using our influence to encourage everyone in our industry to maximize their efforts,” said IMEX Group CEO Carina Bauer.

Plugging these key issues into policy that nurtures strategic thinking, the annual IMEX Policy Forum assembled 35 policy makers from 19 countries in an open platform to discuss all of these themes. Within the scope of “provocation panels” were topics of measurement and data, effective storytelling, diversity and inclusivity and greater collaboration between government and industry stakeholders, especially in how they can assist the economic regeneration of cities post pandemic.

Japan

The Japanese National Tourism Organization (JNTO) stepped forward at IMEX as a good exemplar for greater organizational collaboration, signing a destination partnership between itself and the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO), marking a first for Japan and only the second such Asian venture for IAPCO.

“JNTO will actively engage with prominent PCOs worldwide through IAPCO’s network and we also plan to provide seminars and invitations for IAPCO members to foster understanding of Japan’s potential as a destination for international conferences,” said JNTO Executive Director Etsuko Kawasaki.

South Africa

The South African National Convention Bureau was also in town to persuade business events to choose their country as the first choice for meetings and business events. Amanda Kotze-Nhlapho, chief convention bureau officer for SANCB, was keen to emphasize that it was “time to get off Zoom and get into the room” in a bid for face-to-face events to return to South Africa. Also supporting her efforts at the event was the country’s Deputy Minister of Tourism, Fish Mahlalela, signaling robust government support for the event industry as a key catalyst for the country’s economic recovery.

“South Africa has been represented in various stages at different trade shows such as this one and it has contributed to the country’s hosting of some of the biggest events that have brought in billions of Rand to the economy,” Mahlalela said. “We’ve now developed and implemented a recovery plan which seeks to create a safer environment and stimulate demand including through business events and ensure protection of the core tourism infrastructure assets. We have also introduced a worldwide benchmark in terms of the norms and standards for safe protection of the sector geared towards visitor as well as South African citizen protection. We are here to remind you of our commitment to growing the business events industry.”

China

Whilst growth and recovery were foremost in most attendees’ horizons, there were also some reminders that a full return to normal is still a little way off yet. The China National Convention Center Phase II (see above), a facility utilized as a media center for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and now integral to the 2008 Beijing Olympics Precinct, is scheduled to open in 2024, but for the moment the country remains fully closed to visitors. The dizzying scale of the complex covers 780,000 square meters and lists 270,000 square meters of purpose-built meeting and event space alongside 100 meeting rooms, exhibition and plenary halls, ballrooms, sky gardens, almost 1,000 on-site five-star hotel rooms and a further 10,000 hotel rooms within 5 km. The LEED Platinum-certified venue will be of major international interest for events of every scale, so opening up to allow inspections and bookings will be hotly anticipated.

St. Louis

The event ended on a hugely positive note and a signal of where we all want to be, however, as a delegation of very enthusiastic travel and event professionals (above) jetted into Frankfurt from St. Louis on a very special voyage.

“What has been lacking for a couple of decades has been a non-stop service into Europe,” said Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, director of St. Louis Lambert International Airport. “But we now have that and today was our inaugural flight.” 

Currently offering three flights a week but with bookings suggesting that five slots a week will come on stream in the near future and with the goal to have a daily flight on schedule, courtesy of German airline Lufthansa, St. Louis is now connected non-stop to Frankfurt. From there, the city is connected to a further 300 destinations within Europe and globally, making international business events in St. Louis a much more viable alternative.

“The America Center is attached to the football stadium, so we have the ability to do very large events with large general sessions as well as large exhibit spaces and the food functions for all of that all under one roof,” said Explore St. Louis President Kitty Ratcliffe. “We also have an incredible array of experts in our region who are available to help with program content for conferences and incentives, with world-renowned universities in town, too. So, we can help the speakers in putting content together and have the experts on the ground. We would also be able to do tours of sites and specific locations of interest to groups, which we think is a real bonus for us in terms of what we offer to conference and incentive organizers.”

With the St. Louis news IMEX Frankfurt 2022 wrapped up on a high, and after the past years of disruptiveness hopefully also with a portent of how much better connected we will all soon be.