inVOYAGE hosted its strongest ever collective of luxury event professionals this week, bringing together 280 high-end buyers and suppliers from across the globe in Monaco for three days of meetings, networking, education and exclusive experiences.

The event, which took place on 6-9 October at Hotel Hermitage and the brand new One Monte-Carlo conference space, welcomed 91% new buyer delegates and 74% new corporate and agency buyer companies in 2019, when compared to 2018, with strong growth in the US, Scandic and UK markets in particular.

Buyers this year included senior representatives from agencies and corporates across Europe, Asia and the US including BCD Meetings & Events, CI Group, First Event, Black Tomato Agency, Ingram Micro Cloud, Havas Luxe, MCI Group, CWT Meetings & Events, Make My Event, Invesco, Sony Music and Coty.

Well over 100 luxury brands and destination partners participated in this year’s event including the likes of Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La, Jumeirah, Accor, Oetker Collection, Maui Jim sunglasses, Melbourne Convention Bureau, Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau, Meet in Ireland and Silversea Cruises.

The event kicked off on Sunday with Formula One legends David Coulthard MBE and Mark Gallagher treating inVOYAGERs to exclusive insights into developing the right teamwork, behaviour and culture to fuel success.

Explorer, entrepreneur and former MD of Porsche GB Kevin Gaskell kicked off Monday with an incredibly engaging keynote on leadership and how to inspire passion in people, while Mintel’s Travel Analyst Marloes De Vries, gave inVOYAGERS a sneak peek of the top luxury travel trends from her forthcoming report.

Sustainability and CSR was a big focus across the event, with an interesting panel session on the topic, as well as several initiatives by inVOYAGE to reduce the event’s impact with an improved app to reduce printing on-site and every delegate provided with a reusable glass water bottle to refill throughout the event.

inVOYAGERS were also treated to exclusive Monaco experiences including a green tour of Monaco on e-bikes and e-mokes, a Catamaran cruise or speed boat along the French Riviera, super car experience and mouth-watering gourmet workshop, as well as evening events at Hotel de Paris, Hotel Metropole, NOBU at Fairmont Mont-Carlo, Columbus Monte-Carlo and Le Meridien Beach Plaza, plus a final night celebration at at Twiga Sumasan.