Entering a market in which the exhibition industry has not yet fully emerged is a risky activity, but if time has shown exhibition organisers only one thing, it is that there is no such thing as an entirely straightforward market in which to organise an event. Be it political, economic, social or technological, environmental or legal, there are any number of complications that can be an exhibition’s undoing.
Political instability is among the most terrifying of them. It cannot be ruled out, and can take place at any time in any part of the world. While unrest may be commonplace in certain parts of the Middle East or Africa, anybody who witnessed London in flames during the 2011 riots knows that social or political flashpoints can erupt in countries that we would ordinarily deem particularly stable.
National or localised crises occurring just before or during their exhibitions are understandably every organiser’s worst nightmare. When an organiser gathers a large group of people, it takes on a huge amount of responsibility. To put this in context, the exhibition industry’s two largest organisers, Reed Exhibitions and UBM, currently run 900 shows around the world between them. There is rarely a time when these companies are not exposed to instability in one or more of their theatres of operation.
The Arab Spring of 2010 was one such regional crisis, or more accurately a series of regional crises, that escalated very quickly. To the chairman of the Egypt Expo and Convention Authority, Sherif Salem, the surprise was very real. In Egypt, he claims, nobody expected the situation to explode. “The protests took everybody both in Egypt and abroad by great surprise, and nobody knew what would happen,” he says. The escalation, in Salem’s words, “brought society to a standstill.” Banks and shops closed and traffic was restricted; Salem had to put everything on hold and wait helplessly for the outcome.
In 2008 the international director of UBM’s Built Environment, Eliane van Doorn,
was directing the company’s pharmaceutical and food ingredients portfolio when her job took her to Mumbai, India. As van Doorn sat in a taxi reflecting on her press conference at a local hotel where she had just addressed the impending launch of UBM Live pharmaceutical shows CPHI and P-MEC, she was given news of a devastating terrorist attack: the Oberoi and Trident hotel complex at Nariman Point, where her press conference had just concluded, had been stormed by terrorists in an act that led to the deaths of 32 staff and guests. “There were two hours between the Trident hotel press conference and when the shooting started so we had a little angel above our heads,” she says. Immediately, she entered crisis mode.
“We spent the whole night trying to reach our participants, telling them to stay put. We didn’t know what was going on,” she says. “We were in direct contact with the police and military. We decided in the middle of the night to postpone the event for one day, which meant having to reach out to 30,000 people in one night, but luckily all the telephones worked.” Van Doorn and UBM decided it was too dangerous to open the shows, so the events were postponed until a year later and refunds provided for everyone involved. “It was a hectic time between dealing with exhibitors and contacting [then UBM chief exec] David Levin who had to make a big decision, as this would be a great loss.”
Having a local office meant the organiser was able to make concerted decisions quickly, and ensure the involvement of all the right groups. “If needed, we could talk to the police and get extra security,” she comments. “If you are a foreign company going into a country cold, you will never have these connections.”
By virtue of their unpredictable profession, event organisers have an inbuilt coping mechanism for sudden situations and possess the right mental tools to deal with the unexpected. In van Doorn’s words, and at the risk of stating the obvious, they are used to organising things: “In situations like that it really helps to have that quality to put everything in place, sort priorities and see what you can do,” she says. “Some people were in a complete panic and screaming and crying, while others were calm and did what they had to do. But the ones screaming and crying are part of your team so you have to deal with that too.
“It’s our job to be alert in what we are doing. We had to postpone because of SARS and Katrina. We had to deal with the bombings in London and Madrid. Things can happen and you have to be alert and keep your head clear.”
Two years later in Bangkok, director of the Exhibition Department at the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), Supawan Teerarat, was tackling problems arising from the 2010 ‘Red Shirt’ protests, which saw hundreds take to the streets in anger at the Government. More than 80 civilians and at least six soldiers were killed in the ensuing military crackdown, and while the trouble was for the most part confined to a few specific areas of Bangkok, the international press coverage discouraged organisers from bringing business there.
Teerarat set up a ‘war room’ involving all of the stakeholders in the exhibition industry: the Thailand Hotel Association, the Police Authority, Tourism Authority, Airport Authority, customs department, venues and the Thai Exhibition Association (the private counterpart to the public TCEB). “We teamed up and discussed short-term and long-term problems. The short-term problems came from the communications in the world news, so we talked closely with the organisers and gave a statement from TCEB with an update every day. We wanted to provide as much information as possible,” she explains.
Global coverage of a dramatic situation such as this is hardly good for business, and for associations such as TCEB much of the crisis management is concentrated on broadcasting reassurance for foreign organisers that the problems are isolated and will not encroach on the day-to-day running of an event. In this instance, TCEB needed to communicate the fact that the protests were local and would not affect the internal workings of the country. “We had contact with the Thailand Hotel Association, members of which were accommodating the exhibitors and visitors, so we set up a TCEB assistance desk at hotels and airports to give information and help with the transfers,” Teerarat adds.
Both organisers and associations must make up-to-the-minute information available. “You must give information updates to your exhibitors, because the big concern will be that they don’t know what is happening,” says Teerarat. “Tell them how to get to the airport and what is happening at all times and they feel more secure. Will it be possible for you to relocate a large group of people if necessary or get them home if they want? Organisers should have that plan, especially if they have a local partner. Nowadays there are many bodies like TCEB and these bodies should be a focus point.” As with van Doorn, Teerarat emphasises the importance of local connections, strongly recommending the approach of making local partnerships.
The 2010 uprising in Kyrgyzstan began one week before the eighth edition of ITE’s Bishkek Build, the only show that the organiser stages in the country. The uprising claimed the lives of 88 people, and Yuri Borodikhin, group director of ITE Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, recalls postponing the show at the eleventh hour, with the equipment of some exhibitors already onsite.
“It was a much worse situation than [the] Tulip Revolution of 2005,” he says. “There was a lot of looting and people were setting buildings on fire such as the police stations and banks. Criminals were released on the streets and the police had all but disappeared because protesters were attacking and beating them.
“We were worried because March and April were such difficult times in Kyrgyzstan,” says Borodikhin, referencing the fact that demonstrations had become commonplace since the 2005 revolution. “People were really disappointed with the new regime and thought it was worse than before. During the day it was just demonstrations and so on. But that night there were beatings and it was obvious it wouldn’t settle down in time for the exhibition. We decided to push back a month this time, refunding those who decided to cancel.”
Again, communication with the exhibitors, especially those from overseas, was at the crux of the crisis management. “We were in constant contact with our clients,” says Borodikhin. “We wanted to avoid risking anyone’s life. Of course we hired extra security to make sure that if anything happened we could protect our clients and exhibitors from harm.”
In all instances, the arrival of a new government should catalyse organisers into arranging support and permission before anything changes. “You have to react very quickly and apply for a letter of support from the new minister. You have to have some Government support and someone to come and open the show. In Kyrgyzstan by law you have to have Government support from the appropriate ministry,” says Borodikhin. In every crisis, there is opportunity.
[X-HEAD] Airborne industry paralysis
When it comes to generating a crisis, there is nothing that scares an industry dependent on air travel quite as much as the outbreak of a killer disease. In its first decade the 21st century was afflicted by a trio of highly publicised outbreaks of potential pandemics in the form of bird flu (H5N1), swine flu (H1N1) and SARS. However, not one of these had the Hollywood cachet that accompanied Ebola’s fearful presence on the front pages. More than 11,000 deaths were attributed to the disease by the Centre for Disease Control by the time this book had gone to press in 2015. The whole thing was a gift for over-excitable newspapers looking to sell copies.
Ironically, given that bird flu and Ebola are both associated with and carried by winged animals (chickens and birds, and fruit bats, respectively), one of the greatest impacts created by the global media’s inflated and scaremongering coverage was felt by the flight industry. Airlines are particularly susceptible to international scare stories. Terrorism, volcanic activity and any number of events over which we have little to no control are all too often ladled over the front pages with hyperbole. The impact that widespread coverage of the Ebola crisis had on the exhibition industry, for which air travel is a necessity, was very real, even if the actual threat to air travellers was minimal.
“The risk of Ebola transmission on airplanes is so low, WHO does not consider air transport hubs at high risk for further spread of Ebola,” said Dr Isabelle Nuttall, director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Capacity Alert and Response. “Unlike infections such as influenza or tuberculosis, Ebola is not airborne. It can only be transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease.”
This statement, released in August 2014 by the WHO, confirmed its view that the risk of transmission of the Ebola virus during air travel remained low, and underscored the official advice against travel bans to and from affected countries.
It was a sentiment reiterated by the United Nations, which cautioned against flight restrictions into and out of Ebola-affected countries in West Africa on the grounds that such limitations in fact prevented critically needed aid workers and supplies from reaching the affected areas, as well as exacerbating the economic and diplomatic isolation of the region. “The current limitations on flights into and out of these countries, and the restrictions placed on aircraft originating from these countries transiting through airports in neighbouring countries, though understandable, are not warranted,” commented chief UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. “It is not an optimal measure for controlling the import of Ebola virus disease. The measure does not reflect what is known about the way in which the virus passes between people.”
But the media did not respond in kind, and nor did some air travel authorities. In late August people travelling from or through Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, were banned by Kenya from entering the country, while Cameroon suspended all flights from Ebola-affected countries.
While the airlines and media responded to the outbreak with measures that potentially exacerbated the situation, the business events and exhibition industries opted to provide insight, rather than dynamite.
“Inevitably, and as with earlier H1N1 outbreaks and other health scares, the media coverage can be highly sensationalist and disproportionate to the actual risks involved,” says the CEO of ICCA (an association for the global conference industry), Martin Sirk. “Irrational knee-jerk reactions are likely to be more damaging for our industry than the outbreak itself, so we should all encourage organisers and delegates to access factual information from WHO and other reputable bodies, rather than relying on the media.”
Threats like this must be put into perspective; thankfully, it is becoming increasingly easy to gain access to travel or crisis information that makes it simpler to understand the scope of such issues, allowing exhibitors and visitors to make up their own minds as to whether or not to attend an event. While caution is always the best advice, history has shown that today’s extensive media coverage can make an issue like this appear much more widespread than it really is.
The real victims of these grave and tragic issues are poorly served by journalistic hysteria; and although there is no real comparison it is still worth pointing out that the impact on the meetings industry of ill-conceived inflammatory coverage can also cause considerable damage. Understanding and diligence by organisers are key to limiting the damage caused by such outbreaks of irrationality.
In the history of the modern exhibition, there is no guaranteed way of dealing with force majeure, and when a bad hand is dealt to the team behind an event, what is crucial is that the correct numbers are in their phone directory.
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