ICEF Berlin Sees Return to In-Person Meetings between Education Agents and Providers

Most education markets around the world are recovering quickly now and international students are getting ready to study abroad again. This was the word from ICEF Berlin 2021, which took place at the start of November in the German capital. Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences was also at the event, represented by Lena Vandenbosch, Wittenborg's International Partnership Manager.

ICEF Berlin is the international education industry’s largest and most comprehensive global networking event and this year returned for its 27th edition with more than 800 agents and 110 education providers. The event also saw a return to in-person meetings alongside virtual one-on-one meetings.

Vandenbosch said the first event day was taken up by seminars, followed by two days of face-to-face meetings while the final day was set aside for virtual meetings. Wittenborg's Admissions Team had a total of 32 official face-to-face meetings and 20 virtual meetings with agents from 28 countries.

This included Albania, Benin, Bhutan, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, the UK, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

"There was a buzzing atmosphere at the event. You could sense that everyone was very excited to be back in a face-to-face setting," said Vandenbosch.

"It was great catching up with many agents that we are already working with at the numerous networking events. I also had the opportunity to connect with new agents and other educators in the industry. The general feeling throughout the event was that most markets are recovering quickly now an students are getting ready to study abroad again. Nearly every agent I had a meeting with expressed how the interest for the Netherlands is increasing and that they were very pleased to be meeting an institution from the Netherlands at the event."

WUP 23/11/2021
by James Wittenborg
©WUAS Press