Why Attend

Return on Objectives (ROO)

Ensuring a positive return/outcome is important for any conference attendee, whether a corporate buyer, a supplier or indeed a sponsor. Placing a financial value on the return of any conference attendance is difficult to do and is unique to each attendee. What value is that discreet conversation with a fellow buyer about their self-booking tool implementation or new multi-national TMC? What is the return of establishing a stronger relationship with a potential client through shared experience? These are likely to translate into tangible returns at a later stage but every conference attendee needs to demonstrate some form of return to justify the cost and time of attendance.

We have listed some suggested objectives of attendance for you to build your ROO case for attendance.

Best Practice for Buyers

Talk with other peer buyers about:

• Trends in their businesses and how they manage and measure sustainability.
• What techniques they are using to maximise the leverage of their business travel and meetings spend?
• Do they have better ‘travel & meetings’ visibility in their organisation than you do in yours?
• How do they extract and analyse data from multiple sources?
• What do they do to minimise business risk while maximising business opportunity.
• How do they keep close to the traveller to understand their challenges and requirements?

Client/Prospective Client Research

• Understand the requirements of UK, European and Global buyers.
• Learn more about the issues across our industry.
• Understand what your supplier competitors are doing.

Engage with ITM

• Meet the ITM Board and other members of the ITM team.
• Find out how you can engage more with ITM, what are ITM’s plans for 2012/13 and make a note of future ITM events that you may wish to attend.
• Speak to a member of the ITM marketing team to learn how you can market your business through the various channels available.

Build Your Network

• Look for new suppliers and find those new ideas that today you don’t even know exist!
• Look for new prospective clients.
• Find partners to build your service portfolio.
• Meet senior figures in the travel & meetings arena.

Educate Yourself Better

• Attend every session and engage during the sessions to get the most out of the conference.
• Understand the characteristics of the economy and its impact on your business.

Takeaway items

• Ensure you document your take-away items and plan of action to take back to the office.
• Understand where/how you can obtain the resources such as ITM white papers and tool-kits that ITM will offer you during the conference.