The importance of professional development
Development of knowledge shouldn’t stop when you get out of school. The world is changing at an ever-faster pace. Great learning opportunities are out there.
Far from extinct, the Mercosur roars
Antony Reeve-Crook, Director, ArciMedia Ltd. Twenty years in the making and the European Union has finally signed the paperwork on a trading deal with the Mercosur trading bloc in the Americas, a deal that creates the largest multinational trading market in the world at 780 million people. It’s big news for EU organisers active in the region, such as Reed and Clarion, which represent many EU companies looking to enter or grow in the Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Ven [...]
Turning JMIC’s research into an explosive campaign tool
Antony Reeve-Crook, Director, ArciMedia Ltd. The Joint Meetings Industry Council's recently-unveiled report on the benefits of our industry; Business Events Legacies, may prove to be a lot more significant than its title suggests – but it needs our help to give it the impact it deserves. The report’s authors from the University of Technology Sydney, associate professors Carmel Foley and Deborah Edwards, and Pavlina Javoska and Anja Hergesell, claim it reveals “significant” shortcomings in the [...]
Hong Kong remains a safe and stable place to come for business or leisure travel
Stuart Bailey, CEO; Bailey Communications Hong Kong Ltd. Written by Stuart Bailey, CEO; Bailey Communications Hong Kong Ltd. A journalist asked me this week for a comment on the impact for the events taking place in Hong Kong over the last two weeks and whether it will have an impact on future international events that the city might host. I thought it was an interesting question one which had I been asked at the beginning of the week before meeting with colleagues from around the world I prob [...]
Food and Beverage Will Be the New Emphasis of Convention and Exhibition Venues
Sponsored article by Shenzhen World. Nowadays, the old concept of “food that fills stomachs” no longer applies to today’s convention and exhibition F&B. Convention and exhibition catering was always mistakenly viewed as “window-catering”, meaning simple food, short gathering and dining time, high turnover rate. For most convention and exhibition venues, especially those who rely on exhibitions as their main business, F&B was not considered one of their core offerings; therefore, kitchen [...]
What are US Organizers Looking for When Going Offshore?
Stephanie Selesnick, International Trade Information, Inc. One of the more anticipated sessions at the upcoming UFI European Conference taking place in Birmingham, UK from May 15-17 is the Glocalization 1: U.S. Players Reaching Out moderated by Gabrielle Weiss, Publisher and Editor, Trade Show Executive, Mary Larkin, Executive Vice President, Diversified Communications, Cassandra Farrington, Co-Founder and CEO, Marijuana Business Daily; President at Anne Holland Ventures Inc. and Dianna Steinb [...]
Some Things Organizers May Not Know About Japan
Stephanie Selesnick, International Trade Information, Inc. One of my favorite things about attending the UFI Regional Conferences is learning about other cultures and visiting countries for the first time. Here are a few things we learned last week about Japan at the UFI Asia-Pacific Conference - and how you may incorporate them into your exhibitions: 1. Signage. Japan is pretty easy to travel around! Having bilingual signage – Japanese and English - enabled us to easily travel around the co [...]
More global business ahead!
Kai Hattendorf, Managing Director/CEO at UFI. This year started in much the same way as last year finished – with new acquisitions and takeovers: Blackstone-backed PSAV has bought the in-house AV company Encore Event Technologies from Freeman, Reed is taking over Mack Brooks, and there are even more deals on the horizon. Despite – or perhaps because of – a more complex political and economic environment, there’s been a lot of interest in investing in our industry. In fact, this issue was a hot [...]
Is it time to rethink traditional event KPI’s?
Matthias (Tesi) Baur, Founder and Consultant, MBB-Consulting Group. Financial reward may be the driving force for most businesses, but it is not the only way to measure business success. Our business environment is not the same as it was 20, 10, or even five years ago and the way in which we measure performance should reflect this. Companies assessing their performance by measuring outdated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) run the risk of performing within an outdated framework. As the basic [...]
Exhibitor Retention – Are You Doing All That You Can?
Stephanie Selesnick, International Trade Information, Inc. Jefferson Davis, President of Competitive Edge, is a self-described, “Trade Show Productivity Expert” with more 30 years of experience in training exhibitors and working in exhibitions. We recently discussed one of his passions – exhibitor retention. In the United States, the average exhibition has 76% exhibitor renewals. That’s still 24% of exhibitors who are not returning – and must be replaced annually. That’s a lot of companies! Ev [...]