“An unrelenting focus on allowing attendees and exhibitors to do business together easily, quickly and efficiently underpins the whole show.” —Carina Bauer, CEO, IMEX Group
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and we’re amazingly lucky to be offering it to some Smart Monday attendees free of charge. It will take participants through a real-life hostage negotiation and challenge their powers of critical thinking, leadership and authentic trust.” Diversity and inclusion are also hot topics in the meetings industry these days. According to Bauer, “improving inclusivity and diversity is about recognizing that the world — and our industry — is a better place when there is better representation of all kinds of people. This isn’t a zero-sum game where one side wins and the other loses. This is about embracing and accessing talent wherever you see it.” She Means Business, which celebrates the role of women in business and the meetings industry, ran successfully for two years at IMEX Frankfurt and is now debuting at IMEX America. “This will be a catalyst for all sorts of inclusivity debates,” Bauer says. “Opening speaker Mara Harvey, Senior Manager at UBS Switzerland AG, is a total powerhouse.” Association planners in particular will appreciate the ongoing Association Leadership Forum. “Each year, ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership puts together a thought-provoking executive learning experience for senior-level leaders in the association community,” says Bauer. “It’s demanding. It’s rigorous. It’s challenging and there is unrestricted peer learning too. In the past two years we’ve done a lot of work to make sure the material and the topics are detailed and up to the minute, and that every year we introduce new formats and new issues to keep people on their toes. We’ve also developed our relationship with ASAE to make sure we play to their strengths and leverage the collective expertise of their board and also their community.” Over the last two years, the IMEX team has been consolidating and improving the entire show experience. “It’s what we live for,” says Bauer. “In the future, attendees can expect more creativity, more cutting-edge technology and more specialist learning and networking opportunities for specific groups.” IMEX America celebrates its 10th birthday next year, and at that show “you can be sure we’ll be offering some great added-value moments and experiences!” 24
GROWING THE GREEN MOVEMENT
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he many planners who practice and advocate sustainable meetings will be heartened to see IMEX America continue to prioritize this aspect of the industry. “We’re on a mission to turn the meetings and events industry bright green,” asserts Carina Bauer, CEO, IMEX Group. “The planet is our home — it’s everyone’s home — and we all need to start making different choices in order to protect it. It’s strange because we keep hearing that people don’t realize how much green event education and how many green experiences we offer at our shows. For us, it comes naturally, but we’re now putting a much stronger focus on ‘sharing what we learn’ and on leading the industry to a much greener, more mindful place.” Some of the results of the IMEX Group’s efforts in this area have been quantified. The show achieved an increased APEX/ASTM Level 1 score of 93 percent last year, which means it diverted 93 percent of waste away from landfill in Las Vegas. “As far as we know, no other tradeshow on the planet has ever got this far, and we’ve been helped by some fantastic partners, MeetGreen and the team at the Sands Expo among others,” says Bauer. Supplementing this effort, IMEX is empowering and incentivizing its exhibitors to support the show’s zero-waste initiative. “It’s all well and good for IMEX to be committed to zero-waste to landfill (as we are), but we are reliant on our exhibitors not to generate waste either,” she says. IMEX’s Sustainable Exhibiting Pledge “is supported by a whole toolkit to educate and support exhibitors in reducing their environmental footprint with some fun ‘rewards’ to get them motivated.” IMEX America attendees will also receive education on greening their events via the brand-new Sustainability Village, produced in partnership with the Events Industry Council. “This will be the go-to place for ideas, inspiration and practical tips, and it’s the place to meet like-minded eco event planners,” says Bauer. Helpful as well are IMEX’s Eco Life Hacks, which were well received at IMEX Frankfurt. “This collection demonstrates not only what all the materials we use at the show are made of — think carpets, badges, lanyards, pizza boxes — but also the different choices you can make as a ‘green’ road warrior, including bathroom products, reusable water bottles and coffee cups,” she explains. “We’re promising a cornucopia of inspiration on what’s effectively a mini market stall.” FACILITIES & DESTINATIONS 2019 FALL