Global association of the exhibition industry UFI’s General Assembly has reviewed 12 months of activity, highlighting advocacy efforts, events, education and research. The General Assembly, ahead of the association’s 88th Global Congress in host venue Rotterdam Ahoy, also saw the announcement of Las Vegas, USA, as destination for the 2023 UFI Global Congress. The 2022 Congress will take place in Muscat, Oman.
After running more than 60 digital events over the past 18 months, and following on UFI’s in-person MEA Regional Conference earlier this year in Dubai, the Rotterdam Congress marks the return to face-to-face meetings for the association, welcoming participants from around 40 countries and regions.
Chaired by UFI’s 2021 president, Anbu Varathan, the General Assembly reviewed and previewed the association’s initiatives to support UFI’s 770+ members in 83 countries. He said: “Over the last 12 months, UFI has continued to strongly support and serve the global exhibition industry.”
Varathan continued: “In my Presidential acceptance address at the last UFI Congress, I proposed four focus areas: Resilience, Leadership, Technology and Community. While recovering from pandemic is a long process, our industry adopted many of the strategies very intensely. UFI as well as our industry globally, has been responding in a remarkable way by being Resilient, showing Leadership and Leveraging Technology. UFI brought in a number of new initiatives which have kept the Membership well informed and kept the confidence intact and helped them to come back strongly when the time was right.
“Thus, UFI took its advocacy work to a greater level. While all our affiliate associations and their Presidents worked with National Governments and Authorities on issues pertaining to the survival of the industry and now the restart of exhibitions and the resumption of travel, UFI launched a special initiative – GPLS – Global Policy Leadership Series to connect with Trade Ministers and Tourism Ministers of key countries. We met with Ministers from Ireland, Hong Kong, Portugal, Singapore and more are in the pipeline. I am sure this will continue and gain stronger and stronger momentum and help the policymakers understand the role of our industry even more closely in building economies and societies. We may have miles to go. But I am sure we will make tremendous strides in this direction.”
“2020 saw industry revenues collapse by 70% and more, with businesses around the world brought to a standstill by the pandemic. Working through that, and supporting the re-start and re-emergence of our sector, the work of UFI as the global trade association for our industry has been more relevant than ever,” commented UFI CEO and managing director Kai Hattendorf.
“We continually had to adapt the way we work and serve our members, and we managed. We needed to be more connected than ever throughout the lockdowns, and we managed. Now, we have to be there to support the reopening of our industry around the world, and we will manage”, Hattendorf added.
Until the summer of 2021, the vast majority of UFI’s resources have focused on Covid-19 related work, and are now shifting to facilitate and support the reopening and the recovery of the sector.
Hattendorf went on to summarise UFI's activities for 2021: “This year has been incredibly challenging for everyone in the global exhibitions and business events industry. In the past 12 months, the whole UFI team has been working relentlessly to produce tangible data, to provide practical guidance and share best practices, to speak on behalf of our industry in the media, to advocate, and – last, but by no means least – to offer the spaces for our industry to connect and stay in touch, both on-site and online.”
“At a time where physical trade shows are restarting around the world, we’re optimistic and believe that the resources we provide and our support will help the industry to a fast recovery and beyond. Now more than ever, we need to continue to work together as a global industry and with governments around the world to get back to doing what we do best – bringing people together!”
UFI’s outlook for the year ahead
The months ahead will see UFI maintaining the focus on industry recovery and the evolution of industry business models, with advocacy, research and educational activities ongoing.
In industry collaborations with global umbrella bodies like the Joint Meetings Industry Council and the G3 partnership with fellow global trade associations AIPC and ICCA, UFI will help to drive industry wide core projects like the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative.
UFI’s Global CEO Summit will kick off the 2022 events roster, taking place on-site in Hamburg (Germany) from 26-28 January 2022.
2022 will also see the launch of a new event, the 'Asia CEO Summit'. In collaboration with AEO (UK), SISO (US), and SACEOS (Singapore), it will take place for the first time from 4–6 October 2022 in Singapore.
In 2022, the UFI Global Congress will take place in Oman from 14-17 November, hosted by the Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre. For 2023, UFI’s Board has selected Las Vegas, USA, as the destination for the UFI Global Congress.
Monica Lee-Müller (MD of Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management) Limited (HML), Hong Kong) is UFI’s next president, assuming office at the end of the Global Congress in Rotterdam. She is joined in UFI's new presidential leadership trio by Michael Duck (EVP – commercial development, Informa Markets, and EVP – commercial development, group at Informa Group), incoming president 2022-23 and Anbu Varathan (Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association - IMTMA, India as outgoing president.
