IMEX America 2024, the events industry's largest trade show, revealed a strong outlook for 2025 meetings and incentives, with a growing emphasis on inclusion, sustainability, technology, wellness and sports events.
Held Oct. 8-10 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, IMEX America drew a record 15,500 visitors. The event, in its thirteenth year, attracted more than 5,500 buyers, including 4,300 hosted buyers. The exhibit side also grew: The show used 7 percent more space compared with 2023. In total, there were more than 400 booths on the trade-show floor.
A robust education program offered more than 150 sessions, in addition to co-located education and activities held in conjunction with IMEX.
Northstar Meetings Group editors Loren Edelstein, Lisa Grimaldi and Michael J. Shapiro attended the show, and we’ve rounded up our top takeaways from IMEX America.
- The outlook for incentive travel is strong.The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence and the Incentive Research Foundation released their Incentive Travel Index this week, which shows that incentive travel is expected to grow over the next two years, and program budgets are increasing. Rising costs and concerns over security are key challenges for incentive travel programs.
- The relationship between sports and meetings is growing. Destinations such as Paris, London and New Orleans are leveraging major sporting events to attract companies to hold corporate meetings and incentives in conjunction with the Olympics, the Super Bowl, overseas NFL games and more. Increasingly, sports-related exhibitors, including Major League Baseball, are participating in IMEX America. For more coverage of the synergies between events and sports industries, see Northstar Meetings Group's sister publication, SportsTravel.
- Sustainability is much more than an industry buzzword. Destinations are proudly touting their green efforts and accolades to attract environmentally conscious groups. Business Events Canada, a leader in global sustainability practices, is working to take that effort further by developing and adopting regenerative practices.
- We’re talking about diversity, inclusivity and neurodiversity more than ever. The discussion is evolving not only to be more accommodating and welcoming to a diverse audience, but also to focus more on recognizing the strengths of neurodiverse individuals and what they bring to a team. (Thank you to Yush Sztalkoper, CMP, and everyone who spoke on these topics this week.)
- AI education remains very much in demand. Sessions with AI in their titles were overflowing, regardless of the specific topic or booth size. Based on the sessions, it seems we’re still very much in the experimental phase, but the conversation has evolved to place more of an emphasis on use cases and specifics, with some creative ideas about navigating the challenges presented by AI. (Thinking of sessions or conversations with Nick Borelli , Ira Vouk, MBA , Henry Coutinho-Mason and others.)
- Wellness is front and center. Hotel brands were touting their health-focused offerings on the show floor. Pete Ghione, director of culinary innovation and training for Canyon Ranch, explained his method of planning nutritionally balanced menus and shared signature recipes
- The future looks bright. Early forecasts for 2025, including the most recent Northstar/Cvent Meetings Industry PULSE Survey, point to more modest price increases than this year’s, and a shift from transactional buyer-supplier relationships to a more consultative approach that builds long-term trust.