Two United States executives, Jay Olshonsky, the head of a major brokerage, and John Williams, president of a firm that invests in affordable housing, each traveled in recent days to Cannes, France, where they ended up meeting for the first time. Within minutes, they were talking about potentially doing business together.

This is how things can unfold at Mipim, the world's largest real estate gathering, which began this week on the French Riviera.

"It's what I call small-big world," Olshonsky said in an interview. "In five minutes, John and I put together a relationship" based on their mutual connections to several high-profile commercial real estate executives, including Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker.

Mipim is striving to be a place where these types of interactions take place as it works to attract more attendees from the United States.

"When it comes to the United States, we are excited to drive more participation to Mipim. The United States has still been there, but we still feel that we can do more every year," Mipim Director Nicolas Kozubek said in an interview. "So for the second time this year, we are creating a U.S. delegation that will have sort of a learning expedition at Mipim."

To that end, the group from the United States is holding its own networking events that Mipim curates for the members, "and we will ensure they will be able to meet delegates from the United Kingdom, from France, from the Middle East," he said.

That delegation includes about 300 attendees this year, Sarah Berman of the Berman Group and a spokesperson for Mipim in the United States, said in a text message.

NAI Global's Olshonsky and Williams met Monday night at a happy hour for the United States delegation on the second floor of the Caffe Roma restaurant across from the Le Palais des festivals et des congrès de Cannes, home of the Mipim show.

Sue Zabloudil, a Los Angeles-based real estate partner at law firm DLA Piper who also attended the gathering on the clear, cool night, said her law firm invests in sending a large group of attorneys to Cannes because of the opportunities Mipim presents.

"If you're a global law firm, your clients are all over the world," Zabloudil said in an interview. "This is an ideal place to meet everyone."

Coming to Europe and being closer to some of her clients benefits them and her firm, she said.

"Nobody wants to talk to their lawyers ideally, but we can make it easy and facilitate meetings for our clients with people they want to know while we're here," Zabloudil said.

This year is the second time she's attended Mipim, and she sees true value in the show, Zabloudil said. "You're coming all the way here to meet people from the United States, and they really have an interest in doing international business."

Williams, the president of Irvine, California-based Avanath Capital, said he attends partly because important companies and partners from Germany, the Netherlands and Nordic countries come to Mipim.

"We really come for investor meetings," Williams said in an interview. This year marks the fifth time he made the trip to Cannes for the show.

As for Olshonsky, who's now been to 10 Mipim shows, he said a standout event was when New York-based NAI Global paid for a yacht to host meetings while in Cannes.

Seeing professionals from "15 countries in one space was a highlight," he said. "But we don't do that anymore for cost reasons."

American commercial real estate professionals thinking about going to Mipim next year or in the future need to plan in advance, Zabloudil said.

"You need a game plan," she said. "If you don't have a game plan, you can get lost."