VISIT FLORIDA and 23 of our Industry Partners created a co-branded stand for IMEX America – the largest exhibition in the United States for meeting professionals. This year’s show welcomed 3,250 exhibiting companies and 3,000 hosted buyers from 139 different countries.

The three-day event is specifically tailored for meeting professionals to connect with suppliers during individual and group appointments, while offering continuing education and keynote speakers from various industries. Among the many appointments taking place, VISIT FLORIDA and our Partners were able to hold 10 group appointments, allowing us to market Florida to over 200 meeting professionals. Individually, each of our Partners had the potential to make 42 appointments. The VISIT FLORIDA team alone engaged in 27 one-on-one appointments with domestic and international meeting professionals during the show.

IMEX Group Chairman Ray Bloom made the point that “Many people say to me ‘everyone in the industry is here this week.’ There is great camaraderie here, not only around the show floor, but also at key events.”

In addition to doing business on the show floor, VISIT FLORIDA proudly sponsored keynote speaker Tami Evans who spoke on the final day as part of Meeting Planners International’s (MPI) educational series. She gave an entertaining speech on communication skills and positivity in the workplace in her presentation Half Full of It: Activating Optimism and Other Hard-core Soft Skills. Sponsoring this keynote allowed VISIT FLORIDA the opportunity to gift branded sunglasses to all those who attended. This sponsorship with MPI also provided me the opportunity to speak on VISIT FLORIDA’s Cover Your Event insurance and our upcoming Florida Encounter event before introducing her to the crowd.

Florida welcomed a record 91.3 million domestic visitors in 2015, of which 11 percent or 10 million came for meetings, conventions, conferences, trade shows and other business travel. With studies showing that people who travel for business spend almost twice as much as the average tourist in Florida, we want to make sure that meeting professionals know Florida is a safe, easily-accessible and well-equipped place to conduct their business.

As the success story of hosting meetings and events continues to grow in Florida, so will VISIT FLORIDA’s participation in meeting marketplaces such as IMEX America. To learn more about how Florida tourism businesses can benefit from participation in VISIT FLORIDA’s Meetings programs, please contact me at letemadi@VISITFLORIDA.org.