The Asia-Pacific’s premier meetings and incentive event will open on Tuesday 19 February in Melbourne, Australia with the AIME 2008 Business Events Forum, entitled ‘Do we have to stop meeting like this?’.

Led by moderator Elizabeth Rich, executive director, business events council of Australia, a panel of four senior industry leaders will discuss the green revolution, the impact of the collision or collusion of a wired world and the anti-travel climate change movement, the new world of corporate social and environmental responsibility and what the industry doing to ensure its own future.

Panelists include:

Robin Lokerman is president Asia Pacific and CEO, institutional division of MCI, and someone who understands the international world of association and conference management better than most. He is part of one of the world’s leading association management companies that has expanded globally from its original European base to over 600 staff operating in 19 offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Kevin Iwamoto, global corporate card, hotels & meetings commodity manager, Hewlett-Packard global travel & meeting services, USA, understands the changing world of corporate meetings, travel, consolidation and procurement. A past president of the USA’s National Business Travel Association, he has been recognised as one of most influential executives in the meetings and corporate travel industry in America.

Matthew Meredith is someone who knows the exhibition industry inside-out, both from an organiser’s and a venue’s viewpoint. Former group general manager of singex in Singapore, a large expo venue which manages its own trade shows and consults widely on venue design across Asia and the Middle East, Meredith has recently taken up the position of managing director of the Qatar MICE Development Institute. From his key vantage point, Meredith is keenly aware of the market’s shifts and trends.

Martin Sirk, who as chief executive officer of ICCA, the International Congress and Convention Association, heads one of the most prominent organisations in the world of international meetings. ICCA’s worldwide membership covers all the main supplier segments of the meetings industry and its unique database of global meetings provides valuable information on business secured by destinations and an overview of trends and patterns in the international marketplace.

AIME 2008 includes two Business Events Forums, with the second one held on Wednesday 20 February providing case studies on international conferences and events from the people who managed them.

www.aimw.com/au