Arinex’ National Business Development Manager, Jessica Ferguson has returned from Barcelona, Spain where she joined the Tourism New Zealand stand at IBTM World 2022.

Here, Jessica provides her insights on the tradeshow.

On Arinex’ involvement:

Arinex joined the Tourism New Zealand stand to promote our full suite of destination and event management services.

Over the three days, we held 50 appointments along with meetings and catch-ups with industry partners and peers from around the world. As you would expect, it was very busy, which is exactly how you want a tradeshow to be.

Our team were present alongside very strong convention and visitor bureaus and venues eager to bring events to New Zealand. These stand partners included Tourism New Zealand, Auckland Convention Bureau, New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC), Business Events Wellington, Christchurch Convention Bureau, Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre and Destination Queenstown.

On sentiment towards New Zealand:

The message that New Zealand is open and staging international business events definitely generated excitement among the hosted buyers. There was significant interest driven by the launch of Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre this year, to be followed closely by Takina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre in mid-2023, and NZICC in 2025.

On future opportunities:  

While there were still some concerns around flight accessibility, there was a lot of firm interest from buyers in the incentives and corporate sectors for 2023 and associations for conferences from 2025 to 2030.