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* Virus forces cancellation of major exhibitions
* London Fashion Week engaging Chinese buyers online
* Industry has proved resilient in the past
By Kate Holton
LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - When Victoria Beckham sends her
models down the London catwalk on Sunday, many of her most
important clients will not be sitting in the front row but
following from afar as the coronavirus outbreak hobbles
international events.
The drive by London Fashion Week to communicate with absent
Chinese buyers is just one of the ways the global events
industry is adapting, quickly, to keep the show on the road.
Caroline Rush, head of the British Fashion Council, said it
wanted to keep dialogue open and buyers engaged.
"Through the platforms that we've put in place, we know that
is possible," she told Reuters. "It will be promoted through
Weibo and WeChat and all of the social media channels as well as
media platforms and partners that we work with in China."
The disruption is more serious for others, with dozens of
large trade fairs and industry conferences postponed in Asia
after airlines cancelled flights and companies curbed travel.
Events due to be held as late as the end of March have
already been rescheduled, while the venue of China's oldest and
biggest trade fair, the Canton Fair, has suspended events until
further notice. It was due to hold its spring exhibition from
April 15, an event that led last year to some $30 billion worth
of deals being signed.
In Barcelona, the world's biggest telecoms conference,
Mobile World Congress (MWC), was called off this week.
With more than 100,000 attendees due to be mingling inside
the halls, restaurants and conference rooms of the Fira de
Barcelona, operators like Vodafone and tech groups such as
Amazon felt they could not risk attending.
By Friday 1,380 people had died of the new coronavirus, with
63,851 infected, the majority of which were in China.
RESILIENCE
While cancellations will undoubtedly hit short-term economic
output, the global exhibitions and events industry has proved to
be remarkably resilient in the face of previous challenges such
as SARS, the global financial crisis and the ash cloud that
disrupted flights in 2010.
Figures from management consultancy JWC show industry
turnover rose steadily after the financial crash, but much of
that growth came from China, soon to be home to the world's
biggest exhibition centre in Shenzhen.
"The industry has shown time and again that when there is a
disruption, you may have an event being cancelled...but usually
that leads to a bounce back effect the year after," said Kai
Hattendorf, chief executive of the Global Association of the
Exhibition Industry.
Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA which organises
MWC, concurred.
"(MWC) is the place where business takes place, and that is
not going to go away any time soon," he said.
However, the blow was particularly tough for smaller
companies, many of which sink their entire annual marketing
budget into making a success of the trade fair.
When a major event such as the financial crash forces
companies to reduce the number of staff they send to a trade
fair, the hunt for sales generally means they still attend in
some form. And when tougher times force a sector's third or
fourth biggest event out of business, it often makes the leading
shows even more important.
"If you are running a global platform people will travel a
long distance, across many time zones, to attend," Hattendorf
said.
MOVING ONLINE?
Worth an estimated $325 billion in business sales a year,
the global events and exhibitions industry has adapted as the
economy evolves.
Where Relx, the world's second largest exhibitions provider
behind Britain's Informa, once held a large computer hardware
show, it now hosts events on rechargeable batteries in Japan,
waste technology in Russia and Infosecurity in Mexico.
And for years now the industry has faced talk of whether
shows and trade fairs will move online - both Sony and Nokia
said they would hold digital product launches when they pulled
out of Mobile World Congress.
Holding so-called virtual exhibitions would enable attendees
to cut back on spending and travel, an issue that is becoming
more important as companies and consumers rein in flying, in
part due to environmental concerns.
"Over the last 10, 20 years there have been dramatic
developments in how people interact, whether they do that
online, by video," Relx Finance Director Nick Luff told
reporters. "But face to face remains a very important part for
many industries."
Many shows now broadcast core presentations and speeches
online as well, widening the potential audience and building new
revenue streams.
According to a 2019 report for industry body UFI, there was
138 million square meters of exhibitor stands across the world,
with 303 million people attending exhibitions.
The British Fashion Council's Rush said she had faced
questions around the long-term viability of London Fashion Week
ever since it started streaming some shows back in 2009.
"I think there is something around fashion week, around
seeing the fabric, touching and feeling it, and the convening of
people and the discussion that happens around it, that sort of
community network is hard to recreate online," she said.
(Additional reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru, Doug
Busvine in Berlin and Hanna Rantala in London; Editing by
Kirsten Donovan)
