675 exhibitors, 640 buyers and 4500 + attendees to make AIME 2025 a success

The Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) opened on Monday, 10^th February. Over three days AIME will host more than 640 buyers from around the world, welcome more than 4500 attendees and 675 exhibitors from various business events sectors from around Asia Pacific and the world.

20,000 + meetings taking place across AIME 2025

Held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), there will be more than 200 new exhibitors attending AIME 2025, along with two new international pavilions, Singapore and Thailand, joining 30 countries and territories represented at the event.

There will be 170 hosted international buyers from New Zealand, Europe, UK, South-East Asia, North Asia, India, South America, USA, and Canada and more than 470 domestic buyers – with 3 in 4 hosted buyers attending AIME for the first time.

This builds on the exceptional growth of 2024 – where more than $330 million of business was forecast to be traded between exhibitors and buyers in the 12 months. The event is owned by Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) and managed by Talk2 Media & Events, and this will be the fourth show delivered by AIME Event Director Silke Calder and her team.

With more than 20,000 meetings taking place across AIME – including more than 15,000 meetings pre-scheduled between highly vetted buyers and matched exhibitors – the expanded showfloor will be the place where the business events world meets in Asia Pacific to do business.

Largest contingent from New Zealand to ever attend AIME

Speaking at the press conference at AIME 2025 Matt Pearce, CEO Talk2 Media & Events announced that AIME 2025 will be the largest show the team has produced, building upon AIME 2024 that was the largest AIME in a decade. There will be 100 more exhibitors than last year as well as the largest contingent from New Zealand to ever attend AIME.

Pearce also announced the Knowledge Program has experienced five-fold growth over the past years – from a program with just a few hundred participants pre-COVID to more than 1500 people today.

The Positive Impact of Business Events Report

Julia Swanson, CEO, Melbourne Convention Bureau launched Melbourne Convention Bureau’s ‘The Positive Impact of Business Events Report’, which highlights the immense value that business events deliver to Victoria. The report features case studies from business events in Melbourne over the past decade, demonstrating the many ways in which these events have contributed to the Victorian economy as well as having far reaching impacts in terms of technological advancements, community involvement and lasting legacies of change.

AIME’s Knowledge Program is the launchpad for the global events industry to come together for learning and development. More than 1500 people are registered to attend Knowledge Program sessions held today (Monday 10 February) at Plenary at MCEC.

Growing Infrastructure

Elaborating on increasing connectivity, Pip Harrison, Managing Director Tourism Australia added: “December 2024 was the busiest aviation month on record for Melbourne, with 1.1 million people. Coming to a Melbourne Airport, Melbourne airports also announced plans to expand its international terminal, increasing capacity and allowing routes to service the destination. We were also pleased to welcome China Eastern, who began services for the first time from Nanjing to Melbourne and China Southern, who commenced a direct service between Beijing and Melbourne. Delta Airlines will also be flying direct to Melbourne later this year.”

Talking about the growth in the infrastructure in terms of number of rooms she said: “For new hotel openings, there’s now more than 26000 rooms in the city centre in Melbourne. And that’s bigger than any other city in Australia. And in the next two years, we’ll welcome another 2000 room, so another 9% capacity, so fantastic offerings right across the city. And this includes the 01 Hotel Melbourne in the dockland area just opposite MCEC, a luxury sustainable hotel.”

Extended opening hours 

The AIME trade expo takes place on Tue 11 and Wed 12 Feb. In 2025 AIME will have extended opening hours to allow hosted buyers and visitors more time to meet with exhibitors. AIME opens at 8.30am on both days and runs until 6pm on 11 Feb and closes at 5pm on 12 Feb.