Hey travel conferences: screw your 15-minute meetings, I'm out.

I admit it, I was once hooked. I felt important, strolling - nay, running - between trade show isles from one meeting to the next, pockets bulging with business cards of people whose names I would scarcely remember the morning after (no not like that. Come on, focus).

The travel industry is my drug of choice, in particular the luxury segment where you are treated with that little bit of extra reverence and hoo-ha. I remember pulling my shoulders back, straightening my back and smirking around the room at Wagas cafe in Shanghai (great pesto chicken rolls, take my word for it) when I got my very first invite to a VIP-INVITE-ONLY-TRAVEL-INDUSTRY-SUPER-ELITE-WOWZA-YOU-ARE-THE-MAN (not its real name) trade show, also in Shanghai.

Things escalated from there and for a good nine years I was determined to be a fixture at these events, taking me from Shanghai to Cannes to Marrakech to Montreux to Miami to Gstaad to Cape Town and a good dozen other places. Massive carbon footprint aside, I had a good time and I can honestly say I have solidified several meaningful, long term partnerships and friendships along the way. But considering the sheer number of meetings I've had (thousands!), not nearly enough memorable moments and authentic encounters have ensued.

Wait a minute. "Memorable moments and authentic encounters"... that sounds a helluva lot like what we are proclaiming to be all about, no? Isn't that our very product, our unique selling point, if you prefer the business lingo? We can talk for hours about how we craft meaningful meetings for our clients, and our pitches are laden with ideas of how to truly connect with people across the world. But when it comes to our own encounters, often the ones that our very businesses are built on, we treat it like a fire drill.

Here's the dirty truth you all know and no one wants to talk about: with few exceptions, the conference organisers don't care if you make meaningful connections or not. They are a business and their overriding goal is growth and profit, it's as simple as that. And we should not blame them for it either; have you ever been beholden to shareholders who demand ever loftier targets to be met? As a supplier, you pay the bills. As a buyer, you are a necessary commodity. The rest is fluff.

These last few years have seen an explosion of new shows, larger shows and spinoff shows. You could very well tag yourself as a Buyer and spend the next 300 days going from show to show if you were so inclined (social media posts suggest that some of you actually are, which leads me to wonder if you have any time left to, you know, sell the stuff you presume to be buying).

But the returns are diminishing. I know it, I hear it. I speak with many Suppliers in our sector and in increasing numbers they are getting grumpy. They too are subjected to an endless vortex of fleeting encounters with commodities - sorry, Buyers - who may or may not be vetted properly and with whom they have no quality time to strike up meaningful conversations. Handshake. Cards. Ipad slides. Goodbye.

As a Buyer, at least it's free and you get to feel important for a while. As a Supplier, you pay a king's ransom to collect business cards and hope for the best. No wonder many suppliers have confided in me over the last year or two that they are seriously considering going direct-to-consumer in the future.

It doesn't have to be this way though. There are still compromises and solutions that will satisfy all parties as well as allow all delegates to truly meet each other and build lasting relationships. One of these shows is Connections Luxury, the only luxury travel trade show I continue to attend since its inaugural event several years back. The organisers of this show took a tremendous risk: ask Suppliers to pay the same as any other show (I presume, more or less) but meet only a third or a quarter of the people ??. Instead, spend 30-45 minutes with each meeting partner and enjoy a leisure experience together. In reality that often means you end up playing golf or sipping wine for 35 minutes and only 10 minutes or less talking business... Wow, are they nuts?

The rest is is history. This particular show continues to go from strength to strength and I can say from personal experience and peer testimonials that these meetings are indeed memorable and lasting. Yes, I get the same templated post-event follow-up emails we all dislike and ignore, but in most cases there's just that little added line at the top or the bottom of the email referring back to a laugh, an anecdote or a topic that came up during the encounter. And that's the difference. We met. You don't get that from bursts of 15-minute meetings (or less. One event thinks 4-minute meetings are a good idea ????)

It is my hope that this type of event and principle become the norm and that we start treating ourselves as we do our own clients. You wouldn't send a guest out to 15-minute experiences and you shouldn't accept it for yourself either. Let us always practice what we preach and replace quantity with quality. Our relationships will strengthen, new friendships will emerge, and our clients and businesses will benefit.

Until then: screw your 15-minute meetings, I'm out.

(I was not paid or incentivised by Connections Luxury in any way, nor was I asked to write this by anyone. Opinions are my own.)

Marc is co-founder of Ode to Joy, the Europe-focused experiential travel company determined to deliver the finest and most authentic travel experiences on the continent. He is also the co-founder of travel tech company Botsmith, bringing to market innovative solutions for the travel and hospitality industry. Marc is a frequent keynote speaker and is currently writing his first book 'The End of Travel'. Formerly, Marc spent 12 years in China where he started off as a tour guide and later built a successful luxury travel business.

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