With more than 12,000 buyers and suppliers gathering at Fira Barcelona Gran Via from November 18 to 21, IBTM World saw its strongest edition yet. The 73,000 buyer-supplier meetings that took place were the most ever, thanks to 18 percent more hosted buyers at the show than in 2023.
IBTM World’s performance comes on the heels of the largest international meetings-industry event, October’s IMEX America show held in Las Vegas. There, more than 15,000 planners and suppliers engaged in 86,000 meetings.
And while IMEX Frankfurt, the industry event launched by Ray Bloom in 2002, has been eclipsed in size by the IMEX America show that Bloom and his daughter Carina Bauer started in 2011, the European event held each May still draws more than 12,000 attendees and hosts 63,000 buyer-supplier meetings.
Another organization ramping up its hosted-buyer events for meeting planners is Connect Meetings, a division of Informa Connect, which owns MeetingsNet. Connect Meetings hosts an annual Marketplace each August that gathers more than 1,100 planners to engage in 38,000 individual meetings with suppliers. Connect also runs a Spring Marketplace in Las Vegas that, in 2024, hosted 750 planners for 23,000 supplier meetings. In addition, smaller marketplaces happen throughout the year in different regions of the country; the next one is set for New York City in mid-February.
