Over 1,000 agents, exhibitors, speakers and US and Canadian educators attended ICEF‘s North America workshop in Miami this month, making the three-day event the largest of its kind in North America. This record attendance is concurrent with an ongoing shift in the student recruitment landscape in the US, following a historic ruling by NACAC allowing its members to pay commission to education agencies.
The US Commercial Service recognises that the use of agents is “necessary” in some markets
14% of the 402 agents attending had not been to an ICEF workshop before, contributing to a remarkable increase of 24% in participants overall compared with the previous year.
In all, 10,777 pre-arranged meetings took place over the course of the event, many of which were arranged through MARCOM OnSite, a recently launched tool that also allowed participants to take notes, view the workshop programme and communicate with each other during the event.
Kayla Davenport of Riverside Military Academy, USA, described the workshop as “mind blowing”. “The receptions, and the conference, have no match in the industry,” she said.
Participants also attended evening receptions and a series of seminars offering guidance on building a strong agent-institution relationship and insights into different markets and marketing strategies.
Gabriela Zelaya, International Trade Specialist at the US Commercial Service, led a session introducing the Department of Commerce’s programmes for international student recruitment.
At the previous week’s AIRC Conference, Zelaya told The PIE News that the US Commercial Service recognises that the use of agents is “necessary” in some markets from a business perspective.
“We consider [agents] as partners that will then help a university to recruit international students,” she said. “We understand culturally, as well, in different countries, they are required as part of the process.”
Michael Waxman-Lenz, Co-founder and CEO of International Education Advantage (Intead), co-presented a session on digital marketing strategy for educators and service providers. He told The PIE News that “digital marketing automation is necessary to be responsive to the on-demand expectations from digital natives.”
Waxman-Lenz has recently released an ebook offering strategic advice to educators, which suggests that US institutions may soon overtake their UK and Australian counterparts in agent-based student recruitment.
“Now that NACAC has cleared the way, and with the US being by far and away the top destination for international students seeking a Western education, it is conceivable that the volume of international recruiting agency contracts with US schools is about to explode,” he said.
Attending the workshop for the first time, Brooklynn Adams of the University of California’s Berkeley Extension, said: “It was a great experience overall. Most of the agents were of a very high quality and were well informed about my school.”
