This year’s Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID) took the country by storm with 275 events taking place across 53 countries, breaking all previous records. This was an increase from GMID 2018 with 206 events in 41 countries. The events of GMID 2019 were also done on a much larger scale, with 250 to 400 professionals attending each of them.
“When GMID began, we focused primarily on saturating our internal, grassroots audience. As GMID entered its fourth year and the majority of our industry was already familiar with it, we wanted to position GMID as a day for more than just the meetings industry and increase participation among leaders in our priority external audiences,” says Jenny Waldmann, senior consultant at APCO Worldwide.
Event hosts engaged more with local business leaders, elected officials and the media to strengthen engagement this year, Waldmann says. “We saw greatly expanded engagement in Africa, Asia and the Middle East this year with a lot of first-time hosts,” she says.
With the meetings economy thriving, Waldmann says she foresees future GMID events to continue growing in attendance.
“GMID creates new partnerships and organic growth opportunities in markets outside of the U.S., and it serves as a rallying cry for meeting professionals at every level,” Waldmann says.
