Meeting quota

The quota is the unit of exchange in any hosted buyer scheme: the organizer buys the buyer's time with flights and hotels, and the quota defines exactly how much time was bought. Setting the number is a genuine judgment call. Too low and the economics fail — funding a transcontinental flight for four meetings is charity. Too high and quality collapses: a buyer ground through fourteen back-to-back conversations does the last five hollow-eyed, those exhibitors get poor value, and the buyer declines next year's invitation. For most formats, somewhere between six and ten meetings across two days, with real breaks, is the workable band, adjusted for meeting length and how much walking your venue demands. Structure matters as much as count: mature programmes split the quota between meetings the buyer chooses and meetings assigned from exhibitor requests, so premium exhibitors get access while buyers keep enough autonomy to stay engaged. The common mistake is enforcing the count and ignoring completion quality — a quota met with visible reluctance shows up in exhibitor feedback even when the spreadsheet looks clean. One honest nuance: quotas guarantee attendance, not interest, so pair them with mutual selection wherever you can; an obligation the buyer helped choose barely feels like one.