IMEX Frankfurt is one of the most important meetings-industry events in Europe, and Japan arrived in force in 2026: 50 Japanese exhibitors. I profiled every single one of them before the show began, written as press for MICE TIMES ONLINE, where I serve as European Correspondent.

Why profile all 50? Because a delegation is an ecosystem, not a list. Convention bureaux, destination marketing organisations, hotels, venues and service providers each come with their own goals and their own decision-makers. If you want to work with Japan in the meetings industry, knowing who is in the hall and what they are trying to achieve is the whole game.

This is the kind of work I do across every major trade fair: forensic guides built from sources in four languages, verified before the doors open. Recent work spans Hannover Messe, Web Summit, Slush and wire and Tube Düsseldorf.

The full IMEX coverage is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/japan-imex-frankfurt-2026-richard-mort-rbdqe

Exhibiting somewhere soon? See how I make events pay at /services.

For Hannover Messe 2026 I wrote a 7,300-word forensic guide and tagged 227 decision-makers inside it. Not in the post, inside the article. Each person received a private notification rather than public noise.

The result says everything about how inbound actually works. Roughly 1% of tagged people ever ask to be removed. The other 99% engage or simply appreciate the recognition. Recent articles have passed 46,000 impressions, with zero ad spend, ever.

The lesson is simple: people respond to work that genuinely serves them. A tag attached to a useful, carefully researched piece is a compliment. A tag attached to a sales pitch is spam. The difference is the work.

This is the engine behind RichReaching, my method of content-triggered inbound prospecting. Forensic research on a defined ecosystem, a long-form article that serves that ecosystem, the right people tagged inside it. Readers self-select. The interested ones connect, comment and message. No pitch needed; the content does the positioning.

I built this method for my own business. It filled my inbox. Now I run it for clients.

The original guide is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hannover-messe-2026-ultimate-roadmap-richard-mort-aq6ye

Curious what this could do for your pipeline? Start at /services.

Most people prepare for a conference by reading the speaker list. I prepared for Web Summit by mapping every Japanese attendee I could verify: 1,131 people in one article. Who they are, why they're there and how to reach them.

Why do that much work for an event I don't run? Because trade fairs and conferences are where Japan and Europe actually meet, and almost nobody arrives knowing who is in the room. Exhibitors spend serious money on booths, flights and hotels, then hope the right people walk past. Hope is not a strategy.

Mapping changes the economics. When you know who is attending, who decides and what they care about, a three-day event becomes a targeted campaign. You book meetings before the doors open. You skip the aisles that don't matter. You follow up with context instead of a cold "nice to meet you".

The Web Summit map was built the same way I build every map: forensic research across the sources most people skip, in four languages, verified person by person. No tooling shortcuts, no purchased lists. That is the standard I hold for client work too.

The full article is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/japan-web-summit-2025-every-person-company-opportunity-richard-mort-jvcje

If you have an event coming up, see how I can help at /services.