The author has noticed that exhibition industry associations in many countries and regions will hold a series of special exhibition industry activities on the Global Exhibition Day. Among them, the National Trade Show Alliance will host the "Invisible Industry Tour" (because the exhibition industry is known as the invisible industry), and the Exhibition and Conference Executive Forum (ECEF) will also be held in Washington during the Global Exhibition Day. . The American Exhibition and Convention Alliance (ECA) staggered the peak to host the ECA Legislative Action Week in Washington, D.C., June 6-10. The French Association of Exhibitions and Conventions (UNIMEV) has presented a white paper on the exhibition industry to some MPs in late May. The Italian Association of the Exhibition Industry (AEFI) continues to hold its annual summit in conjunction with the Global Exhibition Days, this year highlighting the value of Italian exhibitions and manufacturing. Both the German Exhibition Association (AUMA) and the British Exhibition Association (AEO) responded by mobilizing member companies to cooperate in promoting the value of the exhibition industry.
Since Omicron was first detected in South Africa in early November last year, the MICE industry in Europe, America and Asia Pacific has once again suffered a large-scale impact. In the face of the new round of the epidemic test, in order to coordinate economic development, countries have resumed holding necessary business and trade exhibitions in an orderly manner on the basis of steady progress in epidemic prevention and control.
Northern Europe is the first to try. In February this year, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden were the first to try to gradually liberalize the epidemic prevention control of business and exhibition activities. With the addition of France and Germany, the two core convention and exhibition powers, Europe and the United States have begun to untie the market conditionally, so that business and trade can resume as soon as possible. Since May, China's Nanning, Zhuzhou and other cities have resumed holding conferences, exhibitions, exhibitions and other activities in an orderly manner under the premise of effective epidemic prevention. The first-tier city Shenzhen took the lead in releasing the signal of "resuming professional exhibitions in a safe and orderly manner". The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Auto Expo and New Energy and Smart Auto Expo opened at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center on May 28. One move affects the nerves of the industry.
Since 2020, the global spread of the epidemic has launched multiple rounds of challenges to the international exhibition industry. Although the industry as a whole has not yet gotten out of the predicament, governments of various countries have become more and more aware of the economic and commercial nature of exhibitions and their indispensable role in promoting production recovery, commodity circulation, especially supply chain reconstruction. This is also another core industry signal of the 7th Global Exhibition Day, that is, the basic function of the exhibition industry is to create value in the industrial supply chain by bringing together industry players. The impact and dilemma faced by the exhibition industry is a tangible demonstration of the challenges faced by the industrial supply chain.
According to an Accenture consulting report, 94% of Fortune 1000 companies have suffered supply chain disruptions in the past two years due to the impact of the epidemic. Among them, 75% of companies reported that their business was facing negative or severe negative impacts, and 55% of companies lowered their growth expectations. The KPMG report more specifically pointed out that the core pain points in the supply chain impact are logistics interruption, production delay, excessive reliance on a small number of suppliers and restrictions on personnel returning to work. The role of exhibitions in economic recovery and industrial restructuring is reflected in solving the pain points of different links in the industrial chain and supply chain. Different industries have different scales of development. As a barometer of economic development, the scale of exhibitions matches the level of development of the industry itself. However, judging the quality of an exhibition project cannot simply focus on the number of exhibitors and visitors. The scale of exhibitions in different industries cannot be compared horizontally. The key is to find out the position of their exhibition projects in the supply chain of the corresponding industry, and to prescribe the right medicine for their pain points. The six-in-one and organic combination of "conferences, exhibitions, competitions, festivals, performances, and awards" should make the industrial supply chain three-dimensional and visualized through exhibition activities, rather than simply blindly piecing together exhibition links.
Objectively speaking, as long as there are still pain points in the industrial chain and supply chain, there is a reason for the establishment of the exhibition project. In view of the scarcity of resources, as long as the market always plays a decisive role in the allocation of social resources, the need for business efficiency will emerge, and the motivation for business travel will also be established. People are not machines, and the establishment of trust plays a key role in the flow of business and trade. Face-to-face business communication can minimize the impact of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. As long as the positioning of offline exhibition projects as the core platform for trust building is established, it will be difficult for offline exhibitions to be completely replaced by online projects, and offline exhibition projects will have a foundation for development. only the construction of exhibition projects has changed from simply focusing on “flooding” to promote the matching of buyers and sellers or blindly pursuing scale figures, to gradually moving towards solving the pain points in different stages of the industry chain and supply chain, and then to the establishment of the core competitiveness of exhibition projects, and the economic attributes of exhibitions was fully released.
Offline exhibitions are the gathering place of people, logistics, capital and information flow in the industry. The reason why exhibitions have become the key to economic restart is that they can comprehensively and efficiently accelerate economic recovery, stabilize and rebound in different links of the industrial chain and supply chain, and promote the restoration of normal economic order.
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Source: China Trade News
