International Pow Wow Enhances Appointment Scheduling Process, Adds Networking Time

Pow Wow, the travel industry’s largest business marketplace, will set up shop at the Miami Beach Convention Center May 16 to 20.

More than $4 billion in future international travel to the U.S. is expected to be booked as a result of the conference, with nearly 5,500 U.S. travel organizations, international and domestic travel buyers, and travel journalists attending the appointment-format trade show.

This year, event coordinators at the U.S. Travel Association, led by International Pow Wow operations director Susan Bergen, improved the process for scheduling appointments between buyers and exhibitors and incorporated open networking time for the 41st annual event, which takes place in different U.S. cities each year.

Pow Wow’s appointment format separates it from the traditional trade show. All buyer and exhibitor meetings are booked ahead of time and scheduled back-to-back in the exhibitor's booth on the trade show floor.

After delegates submit their appointment requests –each can have a maximum of 44 meetings- to the travel association online, a computer-generated system pairs buyers and exhibitors together based on mutually requested appointments.

This year, a new manual selection process was added, allowing exhibitors to search for buyers with the same open appointment slots and schedule a meeting before arriving in Miami, a task that previously had to be completed on site.

Electronic lead retrieval devices are also available for the first time from computer and audiovisual rental company Smart Source. The electronic scanners, used by exhibitors to copy a buyer’s business card into an electronic format on site, can be requested via the Pow Wow Web site. The availability of the devices comes as a result of exhibitor requests during the past few years.

Pow Wow’s set lineup of appointments, meal breaks, and nightly events produced by the host city (a restaurant night in Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, for instance) has kept delegates on a tightly structured schedule in the past. The U.S. Travel Association opted to add 20- to 30-minute open networking intervals into the schedule for 2009, shortening scheduled luncheons to accommodate the time.