Fi­nal­ly Event Man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als can have an event that was planned just for them. From in­dus­try vet­er­ans to free­lance event plan­ners, PR and Mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als, ad ex­ec­u­tives and en­ter­tain­ers, mem­bers of this spe­cial events busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty have au­to­mat­i­cal­ly earned them­selves VIP sta­tus to an event that is un­prece­dent­ed in the Caribbean re­gion. On Au­gust 6 and 7, the Ban­quet and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre of Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, will be trans­formed in­to a net­work­ing hub, where event pro­fes­sion­als and in­dus­try sup­pli­ers will gath­er for the re­gion's first ever Caribbean Spe­cial Events and Meet­ings Ex­po (TCSEME). This event is an ini­tia­tive of the Event Man­age­ment In­sti­tute (EMI) Caribbean Ltd-a com­pa­ny that has been do­ing its part in en­sur­ing the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the event man­age­ment in­dus­try in the Caribbean.

Event pro­fes­sion­als can in­dulge in a pletho­ra of show­cas­es from ex­hibitors of all spheres of the event man­age­ment in­dus­try, and gain ac­cess to a wide base of event com­pa­nies, ser­vice sup­pli­ers and oth­er es­sen­tial event man­age­ment re­sources. TCSEME will fos­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness to busi­ness joint ven­tures and strate­gic part­ner­ships, as well as in­tro­duce the Caribbean mar­ket to in­ter­na­tion­al event com­pa­nies and ser­vice sup­pli­ers as a vi­able new mar­ket for busi­ness. In ad­di­tion to its ob­jec­tive for po­si­tion­ing T&T as a top des­ti­na­tion for Busi­ness Tourism, the ex­po aims to pro­mote the im­por­tance of in­no­va­tion as an en­gine for growth and de­vel­op­ment of spe­cial events in­dus­try with­in the Cari­com re­gion.

This echoes the vi­sion of Fran­co­la John, founder and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of EMI Caribbean Ltd, who in 2007, with the es­tab­lish­ment of her com­pa­ny, set out to give her con­tri­bu­tion to this ex­cit­ing field that has seen ex­po­nen­tial growth in the past decade. "Trinidad and To­ba­go is po­si­tion­ing it­self to be the meet­ings and con­fer­ence cap­i­tal of the re­gion. We all have a part to play in en­sur­ing that we pro­mote our twin is­land as the place to meet both for busi­ness and for leisure. This re­quires us to be in­no­v­a­tive and cre­ative. "As is done in oth­er parts of the world such as US, Cana­da and Eu­rope, TCSEME aims to be the cat­a­lyst to gen­er­ate eco­nom­ic growth in the Caribbean re­gion, in what is a bil­lion dol­lar in­dus­try.

"TCSEME ex­hibitors will be show­cas­ing the lat­est event prod­ucts and ser­vices such as light­ing, decor, stag­ing, gifts & give­aways, cre­ative ser­vices, en­ter­tain­ment, cater­ing ware, flo­rals and so much more.

"You will meet and con­nect with sup­pli­ers, and find in­no­v­a­tive ways to make your events more ex­cit­ing, more ef­fec­tive and more af­ford­able," Fran­co­la con­clud­ed.