Bookings open for AIME 2006

Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) has released its Exhibitors Prospectus for AIME 2006 and opened the booking process for next year’s exhibition.

AIME 2006, a premier exhibition for the convention and incentive industry in Asia Pacific, will be held on 6 and 7 June at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, the first time the event has been held outside its normal scheduled time of February.

AIME Event Director, Rosemarie Sama, said that RTE is expecting another year of strong growth as the business events industry in the Asia Pacific region shows no signs of slowing.

“Asia Pacific is one of the strongest growth regions in the world for the business events industry. The enormous amount of new meetings infrastructure being built in Asia means that many countries will be looking to increase their inbound meetings and incentive business. As AIME is the premier event for the region, we expect to see good growth in both exhibitor numbers and Hosted Buyers,” Ms Sama said.

AIME will increase its space in 2006 to 12,500 square metres in total area, up from 10,000 square metres in 2005.

Ms Sama said the future growth was expected to come from international exhibitors, particularly from Asia, as well as from Australian and New Zealand exhibitors.

“We expect to attract more than 850 exhibitors from 50 countries to next year’s event, following strong and positive feedback from exhibitors at AIME 2005. Exhibitors were particularly pleased with the Hosted Buyers that AIME attracted, and many also commented on the high quality of the trade visitors,” Ms Sama said.

“Our post event research also showed that there was a significant increase in the amount of estimated business booked at the event or expected to be booked following the exhibition.”

AIME’s Hosted Buyer programme will be extended in 2006 with increased numbers of buyers expected from Asia, particularly from the emerging business event markets of China and India.

“We expect to increase our Hosted Buyer program from 425 to 480. In addition, we have new marketing plans in place to help increase our trade visitors in 2006.”

AIME is one of the few industry events, particularly in Australia, that is audited each year by the Circulations Audit Board.

“AIME verifies its registration figures, does not include re-visits (people who visit the show more than once), which artificially inflate some event numbers, and does not include students, exhibitor stand personnel or exhibitors who register as visitors, in its figures. Exhibitors and prospective exhibitors can be sure that the figures we quote are correct,” Ms Sama said.

AIME 2006, 14th AsiaPacific Incentives and Meetings Expo, will be held on 6 and 7 June at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

See other recent news regarding: AIME, Melbourne, Travel Trade Shows