Paris (AFP)
Maintenance of events, postponement or cancellation: hit hard by the defections of participants, the organizers of international fairs question the attitude to adopt in the face of the crisis of the new coronavirus, which has shaken up a flourishing sector.
It is a behemoth of international fairs which threw in the towel on Thursday: with nearly 110,000 visitors and 2,800 exhibiting companies, the Mobile World Congress, organized in Barcelona, is usually a must-attend fair.
But its 2020 edition was finally canceled Wednesday evening, for lack of participants. "Global concern over the coronavirus epidemic, travel concerns and other circumstances make it impossible to organize this event," scheduled for February 24-27, said the organizing association GSMA. The previous days, Facebook, BT, Cisco, Nokia, Amazon or Sony had announced that they were giving up their visit.
This cancellation is an event in a sector that generates 1.3 million jobs and 137 billion euros in direct spending according to the UFI, an association bringing together world trade fair organizers, which lists 32,000 events of this kind each year in the world.
"For the moment, the priority is to seek to reassure the stakeholders. If the situation were to deteriorate, with a case of contamination at an exhibition, we would go into crisis mode with reinforced precautionary measures, for example by limiting access to the event ", nuance Fabrice de Laval, legal director of the French events union, Unimev.
If several shows have already been canceled in recent weeks due to the epidemic of Covid-19 - the official name of the virus -, these were events mainly organized in Asia. Among them, the contemporary art fair Art Basel, scheduled for late March in Hong Kong, or the Conference and exhibition on business aviation in Asia in Shanghai, scheduled for late April.
In Europe, for the moment, the decisions have been less radical, even if a watch fair was canceled in Zurich and an investment forum in Sochi in Russia postponed indefinitely.
- Brain teaser in sight -
"The new coronavirus poses a challenge for the months to come", underlines the director general of the UFI Kai Hattendorf, who nevertheless ensures that the sector of international fairs is "resilient".
For Philippe Pasquet, general manager of the "salons" division of the French specialized company GL Events, "there will most certainly be an impact, but very different from one salon to another, and no one can measure it at this stage" .
"China's presence at international fairs is much more important today than during the SARS epidemic (in 2002-2003, editor's note). As a result, the impact is greater," he explains. to AFP.
At the end of January, this French group, specialized in the organization of professional fairs and present in around twenty countries, decided to postpone three fairs planned in Beijing, at the request of the Chinese authorities.
"Ultimately, everything will depend on the duration of the epidemic. For now, we do not think it will last, but we remain cautious," said Mr. Pasquet, who is not afraid "both the virus and the epidemic psychosis. "
From a purely financial point of view, canceling an event at the start of the year remains possible for organizers who have taken out insurance before the outbreak is declared. But the question could turn into a puzzle in the coming weeks ...
"Now that the risk has been proven, there is no longer any possibility for organizers and exhibitors to take out cancellation insurance," warns Fabrice de Laval. "The organizers have a role of conductor, uncertainty weakens their economic model for the events to come."
Beyond the trade fairs, all international professional events could be threatened.
"We will have a lot less people at the shows, Chinese professionals and influencers in the sector will not come and we will set up video means. This can represent 30% fewer guests on the shows according to the brands", warned the CEO of Kering, François-Henri Pinault, a few days before Fashion Week in Milan and Paris.
© 2020 AFP