Travel Risks: Industry Preps for Unexpected
By Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 4/3/2006
Of all the harmful effects of Sept. 11, 2001, the one that most directly impacted meetings and exhibitions was the immediate halt of air travel in the United States. When planes were permitted to fly again after a few days, the drop-off in passengers — and consequently in tradeshow attendance — was precipitous.
Even now, more than four years later, travel is still more difficult than before.
Looking ahead, show managers need to ask themselves: If another world event halted travel, has the industry learned how to protect itself?
Not everyone thinks another disaster would devastate tradeshows and travel. But the Society of Independent Show Organizers board member Sean Guerre, president and CEO of the TradeFair Group, foresees significant damage. He's ready, and he thinks other tradeshow organizers are too.
Guerre said many organizers have developed contingency plans or expanded their businesses to include revenue streams from online or print properties to complement their events. More regional events have cropped up, reducing attendees' need for air travel.
"However, any 9/11-type recurrences, or the full outbreak of avian flu or a similar pandemic, would greatly curtail all travel, and face-to-face events would definitely suffer," he said.
To guard against the effects of another catastrophe, TradeFair Group has taken several measures since 2001. In 2005, it launched a quarterly print publication, COAL POWER, which provides editorial coverage of the issues TradeFair Group focuses on during its COAL POWER conference each year. Advertisers are drawn from exhibitors and sponsors of COAL POWER and the Annual Meeting for the PRB Coal Users Group, which TradeFair Group manages.
The company also acquired industry publications related to its events, including the recent purchase of the 124-year-old POWER magazine and related e-newsletters, buyers' guides and handbooks from Platts, a division of McGraw-Hill. The acquisition complements TradeFair Group's flagship conference and tradeshow, ELECTRIC POWER, Guerre said.
TradeFair Group also launched two new events that focus specifically on regional issues in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry: INDUSTRIAL FIRE & SAFETY and Gulf Coast Safety & Security. According to Guerre, the events have grown because they focus on the energy infrastructure security marketplace and are also built to serve a regional audience.
On the other hand, TradeFair Group has continued to move forward with some projects as it did prior to Sept. 11, despite the inherent risks. It plans to hold its CLEAN GULF Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans this October, and is working with PWN Exhibicon on the U.S.-Libya Oil & Gas and Energy event in Tripoli, Libya, said Guerre.
"It is always prudent to make some changes and mitigate risks in a changing world, but taking risks is also how entrepreneurs and show organizers succeed," he said.
Intl. Assn. for Exhibition Management President Steven Hacker noted that the industry has had five years to realize its vulnerabilities, so it is unlikely that another terrorist incident would have exactly the same results.
"It has been suggested that some corporations latched onto inherent concerns among their staffs about flying immediately following Sept. 11 as a convenient means to reduce their travel-related expenses," he said.
Skip Cox, president of Exhibit Surveys, said the public is better prepared psychologically to deal with its fear of flying, having been hardened by subsequent events. Security is better, and there's been a lot more activity on the part of the industry, including IAEM, to encourage preparedness, he added.
"It makes sense to create contingency plans, regional shows, etc., but many of these moves would have been made anyway. Diversification is a business decision, not a function of 9/11," he said.
Chris Brown, senior vice president of conventions and expositions for the Natl. Assn. of Broadcasters, said another disaster would have a major impact, but probably a travel-related disaster alone, without a faltering economy, would not trigger as dramatic a swing in the industry's fortunes as in 2001.
"We, as an industry, have learned — albeit the hard way — from that experience," he said.
As part of its own reaction to Sept. 11, NAB launched an event in New York City that is both regionally and vertically targeted, with the focus on the production and post-production end of electronic media content development.
But, noted Brown, the move wasn't purely reactionary. NAB saw it as an opportunity to diversify. New York is one of the most significant markets in the broadcasting business, and the association realized that no matter how much promotion it did, it would never tap its full potential with the annual show in Las Vegas alone.
Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Assn., also felt that another terrorist event wouldn't affect the public's view of travel the way Sept. 11 did. "We are not jaded, but we have tremendous security in airplane travel, and hijacking is unlikely," he said.
The real threat to travel, in Shapiro's opinion, is the government, specifically, "travel restrictions due to disease (bird flu), and politically inspired travel restrictions due to anti-U.S. sentiment and/or retaliation," he said.
Shapiro noted that today, the industry is better at planning and communicating with customers, vendors and the media. It has contingency plans covering many potential situations. And the Internet, new software tools and simple good corporate practice have allowed everyone to prepare better for a disaster, he said.
