Exhibition World Issue 3 — 2019 | Page 12

UFI Comment Kai Hattendorf UFI Managing Director Stronger together here is a lot of competition in the market for attention. To stand out, and to be heard, the story that you want to share has to be relevant, clear, timely - and trustworthy. In the past three years, we have grown immensely as an industry in our ability to express who we are, what we stand for, and the value we bring to local communities and international economies alike. The key driver of this development is our annual Global Exhibitions Day on the first Wednesday in June. Since we launched this initiative in 2016, countless organisers, venues and service providers have been active. 41 industry associations from all around the world have joined the project and are working together on initiatives and awareness campaigns – from Australasia to Western America. Last year, GED activated industry professionals in 85 countries and regions all around the world to stand up to stand out. Right now, around the world, many leaders of our industry are overseeing preparations for this year’s GED, too. I want to personally thank everyone who was involved in shaping this year’s messages for Global Exhibitions Day. Let’s make sure that the messages we take to shareholders and stakeholders, to politicians and to young professionals, will find their ears, and catch their attention. Besides coordinating the GED work, at UFI we have been working on various projects 12 Issue 3 2019 that support GED as well as our whole industry. Today, I want to highlight two specific initiatives that will ensure we have trustworthy data and take timely action for this year’s big day. We often say that our exhibitions industry is an ‘invisible’ giant, and that the value we create is hardly seen beyond some hotel statistics. So we have worked with Oxford Economics to produce the ‘Global Economic Impact of Exhibitions’ report. With it, for the first time, we have been able to calculate the total global economic impact of exhibitions. With a total output of €275 (US$325) billion in business sales annually, the exhibition sector is on a par with sectors such as machine tools, or medical and surgical equipment. This ranks our sector as the 56th largest economy in the world, larger than those of countries such as Hungary, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, and Ecuador. Based on UFI exhibition metrics, the model developed by Oxford Economics provides results for the world and also regional data for Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and North America. As with every piece of global UFI research, this one is based on collaboration and teamwork, and we have been working with SISO in the US and the AEO in the UK on this project. We can take it even further, as this study on economic impact allows for country and market profiles to be added using the same metrics. We have secured an arrangement with Oxford Economics that allows industry associations who are UFI members to have specific profiles for their home markets added to the report. The second initiative is around sustainability – an area where UFI has been active for more than a decade already, establishing trust with stakeholders and supporting the dialogue in our industry. The Global Visitor Insights study that we released with Explori last November shows that a surprisingly high number of visitors are actually avoiding attending events where they see that topic neglected. So, at a time when sustainability is on top of many decision-makers’ minds, UFI is launching a campaign for the industry to support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. We are collecting and sharing best practices from the industry leaders on their respective projects to implement the UN goals. You will find more information about Global Exhibitions Day and the Economic Impact Study in this edition of Exhibition World. All these elements are possible because of the active support from the global UFI community. This comes in many shapes and forms – as insight, dialogue, project support, working group activities, and financial contributions, to list just a few. As we proceed to tell the story of our great industry, all of you are making it relevant, clear, timely - and trustworthy. Thank you – and happy Global Exhibitions Day 2019! w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk