A group leader travels with the hosted buyer group and escorts them to their group appointments. They are the key contact for your hosted buyers and for us during the show. As an IMEX intermediary it’s your responsibility to assign a group leader for each hosted buyer group you manage. 

Group leaders  should:  

• Have contact details for all your hosted buyers in case of emergencies  
• Have the group appointment schedule for your hosted buyer group, and accompany your hosted buyer group to all group appointments 
• Tell us straight away if any hosted buyers cancel their attendance or do not attend. (If a hosted buyer does not check in to their hotel for their first night’s accommodations, we’ll cancel any further accommodations we’ve booked for them.) 

We’ll host one group leader for a minimum of 10 confirmed hosted buyers, unless otherwise agreed.  

Your group leader should register as soon as possible, and we will approve them as a hosted group leader once your hosted buyer group reaches the agreed minimum number. Once approved the hosted group leader will be able to confirm their travel and accommodations preferences and submit their travel reimbursement claim.  

If you’re the group leader let us know so we can add the role to your registration.
 

Group appointments allow multiple buyers to learn about a destination or supplier at once—often in a booth presentation format.

We make a few group appointments for your hosted buyers for the days they are at the show. This gives your hosted buyers the opportunity to hear presentations from exhibitors on their booths.

Group appointments are generally scheduled between 11am and 4pm.

More information about group appointments
 

Group appointment preferences

We’ll email you on 19 February 2024 to ask for your group appointment  preferences.

To give us these, we will email you a link to complete a form where you can choose your preferred group appointments from a list of exhibitors.

The more you select, the more likely it is we’ll be able to match your preferences. If you have a large hosted buyer group, or multiple hosted buyer groups, we recommend selecting as many exhibitors as possible as we spread out group appointments between exhibitors. You can also select up to five exhibitors you don’t want group appointments with, by selecting the exhibitor’s name and clicking  exclude (this is optional).

Complete the additional information box with any details that will help us set the right group appointments for your  hosted buyer group(s). Click  save and repeat these steps for each of your hosted buyer groups.

1 March is the deadline for selecting your group appointment preferences. You can amend your selection any time up to this deadline.

Matching your group appointment preferences

While we make every effort to match your group appointment preferences, this is not always possible, particularly if your clients apply late to join your hosted buyer group. Some group appointments may be allocated to your hosted buyer group based on exhibitors’ requests to see hosted buyers from your region.

If you’re representing a hotel chain with properties in fewer than six destinations and have multiple hosted buyer groups, we won’t allocate all your group appointments to those destinations, as we spread out group appointments between all our exhibitors.

Group appointment schedule

To view the group appointments for your hosted buyer group, sign in to your IMEX account, select the hosted group and scroll down to the group appointments (available to view from 18 March).

Group appointment attendance

If there are any group appointments your hosted buyer group cannot attend, let us know by  28 March.

Combined and split group appointments

We may combine hosted buyer groups of fewer than six hosted buyers if they’re from the same company. We may split hosted buyer groups of more than 10 hosted buyers into groups of between eight and 10 hosted buyers to allow them to fit comfortably on to exhibitor booths.

Any questions? Check our FAQs page and help pages for more info.