Summit of the Americas comes to a close, with an uptick in attendance
IAADFS says goodbye to West Palm Beach and announces Miami as the location for the 2025 Summit of the Americas
On April 17, the final day of Summit of the Americas, IAADFS President Michael Payne, led a media briefing to close the conference. “We’re leaving here today with some real momentum for next year’s event,” he commented. While there are more details to come, it was previously announced at the trade show that Miami will serve as the location for the 2025 Summit of the Americas.
During the briefing, Steven Antolick, Executive Director at IAADFS, said there was “fairly good representation from most of the product categories” and shared the following figures:
- Total occupied space: approximately 26, 000 square feet
- Number of registered delegates: approximately 1,200 (at end of day Tuesday); this is a slight uptick compared to last year’s 1,177 across all three days of the show
- Number of exhibitors: 81 (vs. 74 in 2023)
Based on feedback, Antolick also noted that delegates were impressed with the quality of the buyers in attendance and the convenience that the Summit of the Americas app offered. This helped in the trending of pre-registration leading up to the show.
Speaking about the purposefully limited number of workshop sessions scheduled this time around, more than 120 people attended the Sailing into Success: Cruise Retail session on the Monday. The association is considering both extending and further segmenting the workshop schedule in 2025.
Providing pros to the Miami decision, Payne said as a hub airport, the location will offer easier access for travelers, a vibrant food and entertainment scene and low cost for those based in the city. While there is risk that Miami-based companies will choose to host people in-office, he added this is the case whatever the location. “We don’t know yet how it will play out, but we will adapt. We expect good support from the Miami-based companies,” he said.
Delegates gather at the final networking cocktail event
