Corporate, association and agency decision-makers, responsible for selecting venues and suppliers for events, meetings, conferences and incentive travel,are invited to register for a programme packed with business opportunities and benefits. Three international industry consultants will assist in the recruitment and qualification of targeted hosted buyer groups, in line with BTC’s quality objectives.
Pre-registration is now open for the Hosted Buyer Programme of BTC 2011, the Italian trade for the events, meetings, conferences and incentive travel industry that will take place at the Fiera di Rimini Exhibition Centre on 30 June-1 July 2011. Decision-makers of Italian and European corporate organisations, associations and agencies, responsible for selecting venues and suppliers for events, meetings, conferences and incentive travel, are invited to pre-register by completing the appropriate form online on the website www.btc.it.
“BTC provides professionals who organise events with direct and personal contact with a wide range of destinations, venues and suppliers through pre-scheduled appointments”, says Exhibition Manager Gabriella Ghigi. “The show is an international marketplace, where Italian buyers can also find foreign destinations and products, but it has a strong Italian identity, which makes it an absolute must for European buyers organising events in our country”. “BTC offers hosted buyers not only the opportunity to do business, but also to get updates on market news and trends, to take part in educational events and to network through a programme packed with benefits and opportunities,” Gabriella Ghigi adds.
Hosted buyers’ benefits include the personalised diary of appointments with exhibitors, complimentary travel, accommodation and transfers, access to all educational events and social functionsa and dinners.BTC’s target is to bring to the show 350 hosted buyers, 20% more than last year, two thirds of which will be Italian and the remainder European. “We invite mainly European buyers to BTC, because they have a greater propensity to buy Italian products and services, and in greater numbers and volumes, than buyers coming from long-haul markets” says Antonio Dell’Aquilano, Head of Operations at BTC.
50% of hosted buyers will be corporate representatives, in line with the most recent industry surveys indicating that 75% of events held in Italy are promoted by corporate organisations.“BTC is this year working together with external consultants for the recruitment and qualification process of international buyers” continues Antonio Dell’Aquilano.
“We have three industry consultants who will send targeted invitations and qualify all the pre-registrations coming from their reference markets, in order to bring to the show hosted buyers that are very focused on procuring products and services for events they have already scheduled”.
BTC’s consultants are Meetaxis for Benelux, Meet and Com for France and Moulden Marketing, the UK marketing agency, for the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal and Russia. These companies are well-known and respected on the market, have experience in trade fair intermediation and an excellent knowledge of the players operating on their markets.
For the Italian market, BTC is forming partnerships with some key industry associations, which will bring qualified hosted buyers to the show and will contribute to the content of the educational programme.“This is an excellent demonstration of how BTC is progressing along the path of quantitative, but above all qualitative, growth that it began last year,” concludes Gabriella Ghigi.
