After several years of increased international growth, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, licensee of the World Trade Center Las Vegas and owner and producer of the International CES®, recently confirmed that the 2014 CES set several new records, including one for international attendance. An independent audit from Veris Consulting, LLC confirmed that a record 40,828 international professionals attended the 2014 CES. This number is a 12.7 percent increase from the 2013 CES and represents attendees from 144 countries.

The International CES, which ran January 7-10, 2014 in Las Vegas and is the world’s gathering place for tech innovation, welcomed a record 160,000 industry professionals.

To attract its international audience, the International CES implemented several strategies to increase its global name recognition.

New International Programs

For years CEA has produced CES Unveiled Las Vegas. For the 2014 CES, staff selected two new international markets – France and Israel – for CES Unveiled international expansion.

The 2013 CES Unveiled event series abroad took place in a roadshow format, with stops on October 1, 3 and 7, 2013 in London, Paris and Tel Aviv. Each event targeted the key technology professionals in each market, including media, VCs, analysts, buyers and industry influencers.

These events featured the debut of global research and country-specific data. They also featured a CES press conference to highlight CES news, had tabletop exhibits that showcased products and technologies, and several of them also had top business leaders participating on panel discussions. These events had an average of 275 attendees at each event.

Partner outreach

The CEA staff also created new programs aimed at attracting foreign government officials and increased outreach to its allied association partner’s databases. They increased their partnerships with top-tier international media to encourage press to attend the International CES and planned promotions to increase visibility in target countries around the world.

Through the World Trade Center Las Vegas, CEA solidifies international business connections by seeking formal affiliations with other World Trade Centers in global cities. CEA leverages those affiliations to promote the International CES and the value of Las Vegas as a business destination.

“Our international attendees continue to be a high priority for us,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice president, International CES and Corporate Business Strategy, CEA. “We work each year to create more compelling reasons for our international attendees to return to CES, whether for the networking, or the disruptive trends, or the conference sessions and business deals, and to entice new CES attendees to come experience CES. Once they do, they tend to be repeat attendees once they see the essential need to be at CES.”

Photo Caption: CEA connects with the Paris tech community at CES Unveiled Paris, October 2013