In my career as a journalist, I’ve gone from print to web, then from web to mobile. Now I’ve gone from physical events to virtual and hybrid. Each time, it has meant surrendering old territory but always gaining new ones. Each moment creates an opportunity to create a new space, a new world.
The meetings industry – business events or that which is called MICE – is at such a moment in history. No industry is more vulnerable in a Covid-19 world. When you can’t have people be within two metres of each other in one space, and we don’t know for how long, you have a problem. And the most vulnerable sector within it are those huge trade exhibitions which are, by their scale and nature, arguably harder to move completely online.
But Covid-19 has forced the industry to adopt tech in a massive way. And while there are those in the sector who argue that virtual exhibitions are nothing new, they will agree though that this moment is new. We’ve never had a moment like this where there’s a perfect convergence of factors that changes everything – state of technology, better connectivity where streaming Netflix has become as easy as drinking tea, consumer acceptance of new norms and economic constraints.
And so the trade exhibitions industry has had to look at itself in the mirror, and ask some hard questions, which is what the WiT Virtual on “Rethinking Trade Exhibitions”, in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau, on 7 July attempted to do.
Travel, communications or marketplaces – what business are you in? Is it about room nights or Passion?
Questions such as is it in the travel business or communications or marketplaces? If it’s the latter, then does it matter if people can’t fly on planes or sleep on hotel beds to do business? Communications is organic, ongoing. Marketplaces don’t ever shut down.
To the question on whether tourism boards and convention bureaus have to change the lens through which they incentivize exhibition organizers, Jean Chia, president, South-east Asia, Pico Group, said, “All industries are being disrupted. I think they need to also get themselves updated and stay relevant and expand their current matrix of so-called measurements on KPIs as deemed necessary. We are now beyond just the traditional mode of calculating visitors, visitors, room nights or tourism spend or multiplier effect.”
Relating that to Singapore which has pivoted in its destination marketing promise to “Passion Made Possible”, she said a longer perspective may need to be taken if Singapore really wants to deliver on that promise of passion. Citing the F1 night race, she said, it has a longer effect – the community building, featuring Singapore in a different light – and different KPIs might be necessary for trade shows in the new world.
She also proposed building a dashboard of virtual destination content that can be used by organisers to offer attendees in events.
If the industry is indeed about communications and marketplaces, then the virtual world gives it an opportunity to turn a “once in a year” event brand into a 365-day suite of products for an industry community, said Kai Hattendorf, managing director and CEO, UFI. That also means opportunities to create additional revenue streams and increasing lower level engagement through digital channels.
And if it is indeed about marketplaces, could it take lessons from e-commerce platforms like Klook, whose in-destination experiences cater for a new generation of consumers? Sarah Wan, head of marketing, South-east Asia offered these lessons in building engagement.
You can do it through incentivisation. “One of the main reasons why the digital components of trade fairs are usually under-utilised is because there is no additional incentive for the delegate to use online platforms. In a B2C brand environment, taking part in live streams, tuning in at a certain time or even commenting on posts is not 100% natural behaviour. There needs to be a carrot, be it a promo code, a special deal, the prospect of a prize. Conference organizers need to think about what that incentive is for their audience.”
Or you can do it through “sustained engagement”, she said. “Typically after a trade conference ends, delegates think it’s done and dusted. If we are to truly pursue hybrid models, digital must be used to value add even beyond the conference dates. How can organisers provide a platform for delegates to continue the discussion in an organic way?”
What was clear was the audience felt it was high time the trade exhibitions sector reinvented itself anyway, with or without Covid, as evidenced by these two polls.
Said Wan, “While we’ve seen various forms of digital integration in trade exhibitions, it’s still a sideshow to the main physical event and has little impact or value-add to the actual conference experience. I think much more can be done, especially in terms of engagement.”
What it took for Canton Fair to go virtual – “while we’re still debating, China has done it”
The spotlight then turned onto the 128th Canton Trade Fair, which went virtual last month, the first time since 1957. Being described as a seminal moment for trade exhibitions, the virtual fair was powered by Tencent Cloud Convention and Exhibition Solution.
Elong Huang, general manager, South-east Asia, Tencent Cloud, said the team had two months to implement the Canton Trade Fair, which was a huge undertaking. At the same time, Tencent also powered the 4th World Intelligence Congress (WIC), one of the largest-scale technology events in China.
He said there were around 26,000 exhibitors which joined Canton Fair, and it attracted buyers from more than 200 countries. The Tianjin WIC meanwhile attracted more than 100m viewers from around the world, “a crazy benefit from offline to online”.
When you consider the different elements that went into the Canton Fair, you can appreciate the massive effort that went into the project – live streaming for opening and closing ceremonies and forums, business appointments, auto-subtitle and real-time translation and trading platform. The WIC meanwhile featured a VR exhibition hall.
Other challenges included preparing the necessary bandwidth and global coverage for live streaming, a dedicated security team for any DDoS, hackers attack, an operation team for local integration support plus having to do constant reminders for attendees to show up for sessions/appointments.
Veemal Gungadin, CEO of GlobalSign.In and vice president, digital and innovation of SACEOS, said that while not everything worked – the registration form was too long, navigation was complicated, there were video lags – he was impressed with the energy put in by suppliers, the creative stuff they did with live streaming and the effort they put in “to speak good English to communicate with the outside world”.
“It’s been a bold move and while we’re still probably figuring out if this online thing really works, guess what, China did that with the largest event ever and they are going to go on iterating.”
Chia said lessons can be taken from China where trade shows are getting back on their feet. The first lesson is around reopening. In China, she said, the responsibility for the health and safety protocols of an event is placed on the event organizer, who has to submit very detailed plans to the health authority to get the necessary permits to open their shows. “So they hold their organisers a lot more accountable and responsible in terms of the outcome of the show safety.”
Comparing this to other markets in Asia where the responsibility is with health authorities, she said, “I think this is a useful example of a benchmark that perhaps other countries can consider in the opening of trade shows.”
The other lesson is how the Chinese government is pushing digitization efforts of trade exhibitions, by playing a bridging role between technology providers and organisers. “They are taking this opportunity to push a different dimension of the economy forward, that’s why you see the tying up of Canton Fair with Tencent Cloud.”
She said Pico was partnering with players like JD.com and China Mobile to develop an exhibition cloud platform.
Business models are being tested in a hybrid future
An audience poll showed the future is clearly going to be a blend – part virtual, part physical – that is, hybrid.
Said Huang, “Like it or not, people are being educated to be accustomed to the new mode of joining exhibitions and conferences, and I think business models are being tested.”
Saying that virtual events are here to stay, Chia said brands and organisers have to look at virtual and physical as complementary, with each having its own value proposition.
In terms of business model, she said that budgets will be split between physical and virtual and “the most successful hybrid events are events that have very clear value proposition, what is on the physical or virtual track?”
Said Gungadin, “We are potentially at a turning point for digital events. But it seems that nothing can ever completely replace in-person events. Hybrid is the immediate future. But digital could become a way towards leading to better relationships and partnerships in the physical world.”
One reason why organisers in Asia are more bullish on a virtual or hybrid future is the massive shift in consumer behavior that’s happened as a result of Covid-19 – the surge in online commerce and, in particular, live streaming technology.
Wan said Covid-19 has kicked live streaming into high gear in South-east Asia. “People across all age groups have embraced the technology a lot faster than expected. We see even traditional businesses like fish mongers or durian sellers in Singapore selling their wares via livestream and I daresay it is sometimes more interesting than going down to the physical market sometimes. Small businesses are leveraging functionalities like community groups on Facebook to harness the power of word of mouth and group buying.”
In that light, she said that Klook, which holds four travel fairs a year – in Philippines Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand – could “ultimately land on a hybrid model as well but for sure, live streaming is part of our long-term strategy”.
She added, “Physical events can’t entirely be replaced by virtual ones – there’s still something different about bringing people together, and reaching some audiences that will be stubborn to embrace fully virtual interactions. But virtual events may help us increase the frequency of our overall “events” calendar and perhaps replace some of our smaller activations, because they are cheaper to stage and less logistically intensive.”
UFI’s Hattendorf championed the physical model saying, “eyeballs don’t sign contracts”.
He said, “Old and young prefer face to face over digital, especially when relationships need to be built, and where trust is needed. Likewise, old and young embrace digital tools and services to support and enhance this, and accept digital as a proxy right now. There is a lot of energy to bring this together even more closely in the time to come.”
He said the key question the industry needs to ask at this time is, “How do we build the best possible marketplace for each industry because some will be more digital than others, some will be very much driven by face to face, some will be very happy to have a lot happening in the digital space. But ultimately we build marketplaces.”
For Huang, the key question to ask is how do we rebuild the MICE ecosystem? New tech providers like Tencent Cloud will enter the market and be able to integrate different parts of the value chain. New skills are needed – Internet-savvy organisers and teams who know how to generate buzz for their show, create traffic, maintain and constantly activate users and customers.
For me, the key question to ask is, what aspects of a physical event are hard to replicate virtually and can we solve those pain points with human imagination and ingenuity, combined with the tech tools available now and in future?
When we asked the audience that question, we got answers like “energy”, “sparks”, “emotional connections”, “chance encounters and unexpected discoveries”, “having a beer” …
Anyone want to take the challenge of bringing those onto a virtual platform? If so, you’ve got the silver bullet for the new world of trade exhibitions.