The early morning array of commingled languages on Barcelona’s Europa Fira metro platform was the first clear reminder of what had been missing from the city during the COVID years. From the platform, the route led international delegates—an anticipated 10,000 for this year’s outing—to Hall 3 of the Fira de Barcelona for the 2022 edition of IBTM World, running from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
Recognizing the impact of being unable to physically assemble since early 2020, this year’s show accentuated the importance of a global culture generated by international events. The theme was explored through an expansive three-day education program that delved into how this culture has, in recent years, been transformed technologically, sustainably, environmentally and corporately.
Despite a common realization of operating within this new business landscape of change, a galvanizing sentiment of delegates was one of delight and relief at being able to once again finally meet in person.
“It’s an amazing experience coming back to IBTM World after a two-year break,” said Zinhle Nzama, acting chief convention officer at the South Africa National Convention Bureau. “We were here [previously] but on a very small scale and we were faced with different challenges, so coming here at such a big scale is such an amazing feeling.
“Face-to-face connections, you can’t take them away as they create trust and the formulation of relationships in business meetings, which is key to taking business forward.”
The benefit of physically connecting once again was borne out for many of this year’s attendees through the extent of business generated and new connections made.
“There’s a really good atmosphere and everyone is extremely excited to be back at IBTM, also the numbers were much higher than we anticipated, and it was just an incredibly good quality of client that came through,” said Thomas Mauch, European business development manager at the London QEII Center. “Conversations were of natures that were actually bringing business to the center, including increasing current spend such as multi-year deals, so, all in all, it has been an incredibly successful event.”
London was one of a number of destinations with a lot to share with those visiting their wider stand. Some of the city’s key highlights supporting its meeting industry include seventeen new hotel openings already in 2022 and a further 439 in the pipeline—including Raffles, Mandarin Oriental and The Peninsula—which will bring an additional 40,000 rooms to the city’s offering. These extra rooms will go a long way to help house additional visitors to some of the city’s new venues, such as Oceandiva London, scheduled to literally come “on-stream” in 2023 as a three-deck, carbon-neutral floating event space based on the Thames and available for large-scale events either moored or at sail. London’s older venues are also rejuvenating themselves, with the expansion of ExCel set to get under way and the historic Olympia undergoing a £1 billion redevelopment to include a new music venue and theater that will be completed by 2024.
Joining the redevelopment pulse, the Principality of Monaco was also keen to outline their plans to add another 50% to their current Grimaldi Forum floorspace by 2025 to mark the venue’s 25th anniversary. Set right on the Mediterranean, the new 6,000-square-meter space will offer three new zones suitable for various scale events, as well as an additional 2,000 square meters of usable outdoor space for clients to benefit from the location’s pleasant year-round sunshine.
The show host region of Catalunya was eager to use the event as a platform to promote their new Catalunya Meetings and Mobility project, an initiative aimed at boosting the growth and transformation of both the mobility and meeting industries. With people now moving once again on pre-COVID levels and events quickly gathering momentum, the state of Catalunya wants to tap its full potential as a preferred destination for forums on innovation and new business generation for modern mobility.
Making a significant presence at this year’s event were African destinations, with much discussion taking place on the huge potential of the wider continent as well as the challenges it faces on being recognized as a connected meeting and events bloc. Uganda and Rwanda were both there to promote their destinations as open and ready for meetings, highlighting specific sectors such as medicine, biosciences and wildlife as clear industry draws, as well as highlighting government initiatives in place or coming forward to simplify doing business in the countries as well as easing visa issues.
South Africa was also making an impressive footprint at this year’s event, signaling the country’s readiness and business preparedness for events. The destination was also taking major steps to internationalize and bring global profile to the industry, no less so than by announcing an agreement with AIPC, the International Association of Congress Centers (AIPC), to bring a chapter to the continent.
“It is important that we establish African chapters and AIPC is a global association in its own right, but it was lacking presence in Africa,” Nzama said. “For us to ensure the quality of establishments in Africa is a very good cause for us to really nurture and establish, but also capacitate, because such associations and knowledge to the people that they are serving can capacitate and upskill and show that we are delivering quality as the African region.
“The long-term aim for us is ensuring that we get more African presence in terms of members enrolling in this chapter, but it can also agree and state the message that we always talk about, which is South Africa being a first-world country with first-world infrastructure. Ultimately, it is to capacitate and ensure that we are able to build infrastructure—venues and convention centers—that can really invite and bring more global events into Africa. That is the long-term goal.”
With plentiful business and connections being built over the show’s three days, it was also notable that there was a little bit more circulation space on offer and a clipped perimeter to the show floor area. Whilst the 2022 IBTM World outing perhaps didn’t quite hit the peaks of the pre-COVID era in terms of footfall and visitor numbers, it wasn’t far off. And with the positive feedback on the number and quality of meetings that were held, as well as the business leads sealed and expected to arise from them, on top of the long-term goals of many destinations present at the show, it’s clear that major business events are definitely back to stay.
