ICEF Miami: Bigger and better than ever before!

Dec. 16, 2014 - PRLog -- A key factor contributing to this strong growth is the increasing number of US educators now working with ICEF to establish a trusted agent network. Additionally, for the first time ever ICEF Miami welcomed over 100 Canadian educators to the event and featured a dedicated Canada Pavilion.

Sponsored by FIU – Florida International University (Platinum level) and held at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel (Dec 08 – 10), event attendees included 335 US and Canadian education institutions, 120 international exhibitors and 430 top-quality student recruitment agents from 66 countries.

On the first day of the Miami Workshop, participants were able to take in a number of seminars and personal development sessions, including a presentation by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). Global Advancement of Community Colleges (CGACC) also hosted a panel discussion as part of this programme, giving community colleges and agents the opportunity to share their views, and stories of success, failure and best practices.

During the two main workshop days, educators and service providers conducted 11 199 meetings with agents, including 444 booked through Marcom Onsite at the event. ICEF's reputation for providing the best quality and most relevant agents was reinforced in Miami with educators overall very satisfied with the connections they made. Kayla Davenport from Riverside Military Academy (USA) said: “This was my second and most productive ICEF to date, as it just gets better each year. The efficiency and quality of agents cannot be matched by other organisations”.

See the video postcard from ICEF Miami 2014 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMgx7e5cBKI



In terms of agent numbers, an impressive 30% of the agents were attending their first Miami workshop and 16% of all agents were coming to their first ever ICEF Workshop. As with all ICEF events, all of the new agents in Miami passed rigorous screening and reference checking before being invited to participate. This new agent growth is largely a reaction to the increased number of American educators now working with agents, meaning greater opportunity across the board for students and agents alike.

Participating in ICEF Miami and being able to meet with such a large number of US and Canadian educators is very beneficial for agents. With minimal travel and time away from work, agents are able to meet educators from all sectors. Institutions at ICEF Miami were well spread across three main education sectors (university/vocational 43%, language schools 34%, secondary/boarding/high schools 23%). Kenneth Odion Ilalokhoin of Global Networks Educational Services, an agency in Nigeria said: “ICEF Miami has offered us an opportunity to consolidate previous partnerships and also opened new doors for us. Now we are able to diversify our portfolio and introduce new programmes to our students”.

On the second day of the workshop NACAC hosted a working lunch. Led by Eddie West, the lunch saw seven leading education agents and representatives from seven higher education institutions discuss issues concerning international student recruitment. Topics addressed included the practice of agents charging students for their services in certain countries, and the recommendation that those working with agents be required to list their agent partners on their websites.

Also launched in Miami this year was the US Agent Training Course (USATC). The new US Agent Training Course will be available online and free of charge as of January 2015. Similar to its Canadian counterpart, the Canada Course for Education Agents (CCEA), the USATC is designed for international education agents working with American schools, universities, and colleges to recruit international students, and is aimed at increasing agents’ knowledge and standards of practice in their work with both institutions and students.

The CCEA continues to qualify agents each week. At this time last year there were a total of 55 Canada Course Graduates (CCGs) (http://www.icef.com/agent-training/canada-course.html). As of the final day of ICEF Miami there were 180 CCGs in 44 countries around the world. This is tremendous news for Canadian institutions as it signifies both the strong commitment by agents to represent and promote Canada to their students to the best of their abilities, and also a general increase in agent quality. During the workshop a further three agents qualified as CCGs. They were: Tobore Agbaire from Rankora Consulting – Newmarket (Canada), Ivan Tagliaferro from English Experience Intercâmbios e Turismo (Brazil) and Lizeth Torres from ORDEX Cultural Exchange (Ecuador).

Destination-focussed events such as ICEF Miami give education institutions and associations the opportunity to showcase their campuses, cities and regions through FAM tours. These tours give agents first-hand knowledge that they in turn can pass on to potential students. Nine FAM tours were offered this year and included trips to campuses throughout Florida.

The next ICEF North America event is ICEF Montréal to be held May 10 - 12, 2015, at the Hilton Montréal Bonaventure. This workshop gives US and Canadian educators the opportunity to meet quality agents from 60 countries around the world.

For more information on ICEF events go to http://www.icef.com or contact Korinne Algie or Stan Bobrov at communications@icef.com