The May cover of MPI’s member magazine, One+, highlights the feature story titled, “Hosted Buyer is Here to Stay.” The story focuses on the idea that hosted buyer-type programs seem to be transforming America’s meeting landscape much as they have done for the previous two decades in Europe. For those venue professionals unfamiliar with the term – a hosted buyer program allows vendors and buyers to set a series of short pre-arranged meetings to do targeted business during an annual conference or trade show. The concept began with IMEX in the late 80’s when Ray Bloom, founder and director of the IMEX Group looked to bring the best, high-volume, meeting planner buyers into his show. Today, IMEX brings in people from 56 countries to attend their show as hosted buyers. In 2010, MPI held its first hosted buyer pilot program in Cancun, Mexico – the program drew 105 planners and 76 suppliers. Fast-forward to MPI’s 2012 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri and those numbers were up to 240 and 163, respectively.
IAVM will be introducing its own hosted buyer model during VenueConnect 2013, taking place July 27-30 in New Orleans. In addition to the conference’s educational sessions and dynamic trade show, IAVM will launch the IAVM DirectConnect Appointment Program.
Here’s how it works:
The venue manager who is the influencer, decision maker or buyer for their venue (this may or may not be the venue professional who typically attends the annual conference) can go online and pre-qualify to participate in the program. They confidentially disclose the type of products they plan to purchase in the coming months and share their estimated budgets. The qualified venue managers are then matched up with vendors who can provide the applicable products or services, and short, 20 minute meetings are set to take place Monday morning, July 29, at VenueConnect.
The program promises to be a win-win for both the vendors providing products and services and the venue professionals looking to make large (or even small) purchases for their venues. Companies can avoid expensive and time consuming travel that comes with making individual sales calls in multiple cities. They also know beforehand what the venue managers will be looking for so they can plan ahead to present their best products or service solutions at the meetings. For venue managers, the IAVM DirectConnect Appointment Program will allow venue managers to see and compare products and services they already know they will need in the coming months during a single morning at IAVM’s annual conference and trade show. The short appointments are pre-arranged before the conference so vendors and attendees know who they will be meeting with to maximize efficiency.
Not only will venue managers be able to do business in very short and productive series of meetings, but pre-qualified, participating venue managers will also receive FREE conference registration and a two night hotel stay at the host hotel as part of the process – thus the ‘hosted’ in the term hosted buyer program. This is a perfect opportunity for a venue manager to encourage their venue’s designated buyer to attend the conference free of charge and take advantage of the trade show and the conference’s educational sessions, networking events, and the keynote speaker – all while knocking out some of their major purchases for the coming year.
Take advantage of IAVM DirectConnect. Space is limited, so don’t delay. Register today.
