Much more than meetings

GIBTM is designed as a place to learn, gather and exchange information, create new relationships and conduct business.

The Gulf Incentives, Business Travel and Meetings (GIBTM) exhibition joins a growing EIBTM family of major B2B trade events for the global meetings industry.

GIBTM is, however, a first in so far as the event is expected to occupy a long-term role as a focal point for the development and growth of the meetings industry (the correct official term for MICE) in the Middle East region and for creating recognition for the meeting professional role in the region.

It is also a first as a major meetings industry event in, and for, the Middle East region.

GIBTM will be based on the internationally renowned Hosted Buyer programme which involves the recruitment and strict qualification of buyers from Europe, Asia and the Middle East who have demonstrated actual or real potential business for the region. Hosted buyers will have pre-scheduled appointments, a minimum of eight per day, and will be required to participate in business networking events on three evenings. This precise focus on face-to-face engagement is a key feature of Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) approach to B2B events in this very fast developing business sector.

The professional education programme is geared to providing insights into how to generate international business for the region and how and why the role of the meeting professional (those engaged in the planning of or the supply to the business of meetings) can, and should, be more recognised as an official profession.

Across the globe, hundreds of thousands of professionals are engaged in the meetings industry, generating billions of pounds sterling, dollars and an array of currencies. The economic importance of this business is undeniable, yet largely unmeasured.

An important global development in recognising the economic importance of the meetings industry is the creation by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation of an accounting system whereby governments can measure the economic contribution and growing importance of the sector — an initiative launched in collaboration with Reed Travel Exhibitions, MPI and ICCA.

GIBTM has decided, however, in collaboration with MICE International magazine, to generate primary research to provide impetus in generating data about the meetings industry in the Gulf and wider Middle East. The results of this first-ever research study will be revealed during GIBTM and will illustrate the meetings industry business flows inbound, outbound and intra-regionally.

GIBTM is designed to be more than just a marketplace. It is being specifically designed as a meeting place, a place to learn and to gather and exchange information, a place to create new relationships and, of course, a place to do genuine and very good business.

RTE CALENDAR 2007

List of Reed Travel Exhibitions meetings and incentives events

- AIME
February 13-14
Melbourne Exhibition & Convention Centre,
Melbourne, Australia.

- GIBTM
March 13-15
ADNEC, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

- CIBTM
July 3-5
China World Exhibition Hall,
Beijing, China.

- ICCA Exhibition
October 27-31
Pattaya Exhibition & Convention Hall
Pattaya, Thailand.

- EIBTM
November 27-29
Fira Gran Via, Barcelona,
Spain.

- The writer is Group Exhibition Director, Reed Travel Exhibitions.