Coronavirus is affecting the exhibition industry with plenty of events being cancelled or postponed. The IELA network is supporting and working closely with organisers and exhibitors from the logistics side to manage challenges, minimizing the impact.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus update to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
As event professionals we take very seriously the care, health and safety of exhibitors, event participants and workers, and we are committed to providing timely and accurate information to assist our community in making informed decisions.
To this end, the IELA Board of Management has decided to postpone the Operations Summit 2020 in Bangkok to a later time this year.
This allows us to continue monitoring the situation and to react accordingly. The new event dates will be announced as soon as possible while observing the latest news.
We appreciate your understanding and support while we will continue to monitor the situation and will provide updates as needed.
Everyone at IELA wishes the affected people a speedy recovery.
About the Operations Summit:
The IELA Operations Summit provides a platform for operational staff of IELA Member Companies to exchange ideas and experience and to pursue common goals in the industry. The next edition will take place from February 13th – 15th 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand.
IELA’s Operations Summit is a funded event exclusively for IELA Members and it is the only dedicated forum for exhibition and freight forwarding operation professionals, offering valuable perspectives on improving operational efficiencies, enhancing service standards, optimising worldwide relationships and increasing bottom lines.
The 2020 edition’s main topic will be the digitalisation of our workplace with experts addressing the topic and demonstrations of best practices by IELA Members. It will include 10 hours of lectures and 5 hours of 1-2-1 networking, with many additional opportunities for informal networking.
Bas Wiendels, IELA Education and Training Programme Working Group Chairman explains “The best way to realise how your future daily work will be is to look back at how it was 10 years ago. So just imagine what digitalisation will bring us in the next 10 years. I think that we have no idea about our work in 10 years from now. I do however think that the direction in which we are going is clear. Every step in the development of our day to day work will involve digitalisation.”
We have changed from Fax Mailings to e-Mail & Whatsapp, from advertising on paper to Social Media, from backup disks to using the Cloud. But with what kind of threats & opportunities does our operational staff need to cope in the next years? From the digital screening of volume to Venue Monitoring going as far as Digital Traffic Management, these technologies will probably be standard in a few years, or will they?
The IELA Operations Summit also offers each participant company with the opportunity to present themselves and their services to all fellow IELA members by taking part in the Digital Poster Exhibition. This exhibition enables you to accentuate why you are unique in your field, what special skills and competences you offer and why you are a valuable associate.
During the 2018 edition, IELA offered a fully funded event to 61 delegates representing 53 IELA members from 27 countries and provided 10 engaging lectures by IELA experts from all over the world. Valuable insights were given from Konstantin Stathopoulos, Head of Sales & Handling South China, Hong Kong & Taiwan at Lufthansa Cargo AG with his presentation about Airline operations. There was also the talk on logistics requirements and solutions of exhibition centres presented by Ian Hume, Director Department Event Technology & Logistics at Messe Düsseldorf.