International Exhibitions in the new Worldwide Situation

After pandemic of the Covid 19, the exhibition industry is also thinking how to adjust itself with the new situation which all are aware of its details and nowadays all engaged parties in this business are exchanging the details to check the new issues and find the solutions which you will find a part of it, as followings:

Trade Development:

As the main mission of each organizer is providing the professional platform and necessary facilities for both groups of Exhibitors and Visitors to make the promotion of their business, so the organizers need to make focus on these two groups (Exhibitors & Visitors) and learned about their new expectations how the trade development of them would be continued without any issue and what they need in the new situation, as they are the main power and wealth of the organizers and without them, no business would be done.

Healthy and Safety Policy:

The first important point is how to keep safe and healthy of the people in the show to consider not letting any infected person enter the show and also how to keep the social or physical distancing between the people who are walking in the aisles of the halls.

Online Exhibition:

One of the subjects which the organizers were thinking about it from many years before is how to organize the online exhibition and how to perform the digitalizing of this business, considering the new situation and also planning for the future management of this industry.

Practical Solutions

The only thing that people are rewarded for is Perceived Value to the market. Everyone is paid in proportion to the perceived value they provide as a result of their service. The greater the perceived value, the greater the compensation. So the question is what the organizers need to do to make more perceived value to get the great appreciation from both Exhibitors and Visitors for the present and also future conditions. Keeping the reputation of the organizer in the long term plan also depends on the perceived value Index.

Launching the Gulfood Community and Gulfood Virtual on the website of Gulfood are very clear samples, in this respect.

-Continuous communication with the companies and letting them know that we are understanding the situation and their issues. How much they are under pressure, due to the manufacturing issues, logistics and transport problems, how to support and keeping their clients, following up on the new marketing plans to get the new clients, market demand fluctuations, and how to adjust their organization with it, etc.

-Setting up the webinars with particular subjects regarding where the F&B worldwide market is going on, what should do with falling the market demand and purchasing power of the consumers, how to make compatibility with the new current situation and why need to stay in the market and bearing its marketing and promotional costs, etc.

Taming the Black Swan Webisode is a very good start to exchange the ideas about current conditions with the companies and letting them know about the most updated ones.

-Direct talking with both Exhibitors and Visitors of the shows and asking them (through filling the questionnaires) about their ideas, expectations, visions, plans and getting a conclusion on how to move forward, considering the necessary amendments in all show management plans. As mentioned, these two groups are the main sources of each organizer and their idea and opinions are the road map of the future changes.

-Requesting the sales agents to analyze their territories and will provide a report including the opinions of the Exhibitors and Visitors (in detail) in their region to complete the total data of organizers and evaluate their expectations from the next edition of the show.

-Letting the companies know how much their health is important to the organizer and explain to them how we will control the safety of the show by the following plan:

--Using technology is a very important and interesting success key to convince the companies how the Organizer is sensitive about this issue. For sure, the new more technologies are on the way and could be used to control more the health of the people with high accuracy, very soon.

--Serious daily controlling in entrance registration, even if it will take time. The companies will also welcome it for sure, as it is in direct relation with their health.

--Walking considerable numbers of Medical teams with special clothes in all halls within the show days to show the companies that everything is under control.

--Dispreading and allocating the abundant Hygienic liquids in many places of the show to enable the people will clean their hands, time by time. It had been done comprehensively in Gulfood 2020.

--Temporarily stopping people to enter a hall when that hall is full and directing them to other halls which are quieter. It means the circulation of the visitors could move as before but the physical distance could be better controlled in this way.

Increasing the widths of the aisles to keep the physical distance among the visitors is an idea which firstly is coming to the minds but it will not work, because by following up this way, the total size of the show and consequently the total numbers of the exhibitors will be decreased. It means the numbers of visitors are also will be decreasing. When a visitor is planning to visit the show, it does not mean that he will visit all 5000 stands while he is planning to visit around 100 to 150 of his direct contacts in his business and as soon as learning that around half of them will not exhibit in due of lowering the size of the show, so he will cancel his visit.

-Hiring a technical team by the organizer to make a study on how to move to the digitalization process of the international shows, in parallel with other activities. Select a small show, as a pilot and work on it to find out the difficulties and opportunities of launching it, as a road map to the future. For sure, it would be in accompany with the amazing experiences and will lead to more success in each step of the progressing of this new line of show organizing.

Although Covid 19 will make difficulties in our normal business life, however, I hope all will lead to more success for all engaged parties in show business.

Kind regards,

Behrooz Rezazadeh

CEO

PSDC Group