AIME 2020 pre-empted the pandemic. AIME 2025 pre-empted the unfolding of a global trade and intellectual engagement crisis.
As a case study in fortunate timing, the Asia-Pacific’s annual meetings and business events trade show illustrated the harmony of globalisation when in full flow. It’s hard to imagine how the AUS$400m of trade reported from this edition might be impacted, but it certainly won’t be a positive one as the political bullying and tariffs to the north eat away at commercial and social confidence in the Global South.
But as a case study in the positive impact of events, AIME 2025 surpassed all previous editions. It felt the final act in post-pandemic recovery with demand up, and show floor trade up from 2024 by over 30% mirroring a return to, and beyond, 2019 levels.
AIME 2025 illustrated how business events foster growth, while advancing Civil Society
The event galvanised global actors as bees to the advocacy honeypot. Both AIPC and UFI staged regional conferences, ICCA convened its members, the Australian Business Events Association (ABEA) held a prodigiously unified advocacy gathering and there was much to celebrate as The Iceberg meted out its inaugural awards for advancing the value recognition of business and professional events beyond tourism.
And even the Business Events Australia GM, Robin Mack, acknowledged that though business events feed $4.3bn into his Visitor Economy in-box, as important were the contributions to sectoral growth and government KPI’s other than his own tourism agency.
Peter King, chair of the ABEA, acknowledged too, that the Australian Bid Fund of $24m over 3 years has yielded a $1bn, or 50:1 ROI being merely the tip of the fund’s impact – namely upon supply chain consumption.
Oceanic leaders to a man or woman seemed to acknowledge that the narrative of business events had finally extended to every social, economic, or societal agenda with data and storytelling to back it up. It was a time when the sector should have been in celebration. But the geopolitical axis of change, made thousands of miles away, has changed all that.
This was the AIME before The Storm – as if history were repeating itself.
