How to provide better service for the audience in the process of exhibition service

In recent years, government-led exhibitions have shown a rapid development trend. On the one hand, local governments have improved their understanding of the role of exhibition industry, and the government is willing to invest more funds and resources to build local exhibition business cards; On the other hand, it is also because the ability of local exhibition enterprises to hold exhibitions and conferences is not big enough. Faced with a comprehensive exhibition with large scale, wide influence and high level, the government has to do it by itself. This is directly related to the short history of China's convention and exhibition industry, the lack of professionals and the development level of convention and exhibition economy.

* * * Gender and trends

Under the economic crisis, government-led exhibitions are of great significance to boost the confidence of the exhibition industry, adjust the layout of local industries, attract investment and help local exhibition enterprises develop and grow. Government-led exhibition is determined by the nature of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, but it is not a patent of China. Looking at the influential large-scale comprehensive exhibitions in the world, many of them have the shadow of government support. At present, China's government-led exhibitions show the following development trends.

First, more and more market-oriented operation.

Government-led exhibitions are generally large-scale, high-level, long-term operation and large investment, and need to mobilize various administrative resources. Conventional exhibition service companies are not competent to organize such a complex and sensitive large-scale exhibition, so local governments tend to set up a permanent organization to co-ordinate the preparations for the exhibition. In fact, a lot of coordination with higher authorities, such as the central ministries and commissions, sometimes requires the main person in charge of local governments to coordinate. Therefore, from the perspective of ensuring the effectiveness of the exhibition, it is necessary for the government to intervene.

At the same time, we also see that the government is willing to outsource a large number of exhibition services to enterprises. No matter the scope or degree of market-oriented operation, it is more and more conducive to the development of exhibition service enterprises. Exhibition enterprises have gained more business opportunities. The government tends to outsource more specific conference and exhibition services to professional exhibition companies, which not only helps to save money and improve the quality of holding conferences and exhibitions, but also frees government officials from complex meetings. Exhibition companies can not only obtain income and benefits by providing various services, but also train employees and improve their service level. With the continuous improvement of service quality and organizational capacity of exhibition companies, the government will outsource more exhibition services to exhibition companies, which is good news for exhibition companies. The final development result will be in the direction that the government's main focus is only on the coordination with the higher-level government, the formulation of meeting topics, the invitation of important guests, the implementation of important sponsorship, etc., and all other matters will be handled by the exhibition company.

Second, it is increasingly developing in the direction of specialization.

Government-led exhibitions are mostly a mixture of large-scale exhibitions, activities, contracts, performances, conferences and forums, with comprehensive contents, including investment, trade, industrial manufacturing, agricultural science and technology, IT information technology, finance, culture, transportation and logistics, tourism and so on. , covering major economic sectors and industries. Such a large-scale exhibition can focus on the local economic advantages and investment potential. But there is still a long way to go in terms of professionalism. In fact, some governments have taken a gratifying step. In the morning, Wang Guoping, secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, preached that the West Expo was determined to draw a clear line with "relying on financial allocation" and "give full play to the basic role of the market and explore new ways of industrialized hosting the Expo". This provides us with a case for reference.

In the final analysis, exhibitions and conferences must be specialized. Only by providing tangible things that enterprises and individuals want to attend can exhibitors and delegates be firmly attached to the audience. Specialization is the foundation of branding. Only with this foundation can we make money not only for ordinary people, but also for all walks of life, as Minister Wang Guoping said.

Third, the degree of internationalization is getting higher and higher.

At present, the global economic situation is grim, and trade protectionism is on the rise in some countries. The global economic crisis and the widespread influenza A (H 1N 1) have reduced the desire of business people to travel long distances. In order to attract overseas investment and technology and promote the export of local commodities, the government pays more and more attention to inviting exhibitions, attracting investment and attending meetings. This is determined by the government-led exhibition purpose. With the increase of economic and trade exhibitions held in various places, internationalization has become an important symbol of the success of an exhibition, especially for large-scale exhibitions sponsored by the government.

Services and actions

Then, how can exhibition enterprises better serve the government-led exhibitions?

The author combines the characteristics of the above three government-led exhibitions and my experience in receiving government-led exhibitions to talk about some personal views.

First, learn from foreign advanced ideas of holding exhibitions and conferences, and combine with China's national conditions to provide the best exhibition service scheme for government-led exhibitions, which should be both international and localized.

After 30 years of reform and opening up, China's convention and exhibition industry has made remarkable achievements. However, most of China's exhibition service enterprises still operate extensively, and most of them compete with each other in the downstream of the industrial chain, and there is still a considerable gap between them and the world's advanced exhibition organization standards in terms of service standards, service processes and quality control. Government-led exhibitions are often foreign-related economic and trade exhibitions. Our exhibition enterprises must conform to the development trend of international exhibitions and conferences and provide various services to meet the needs of overseas exhibitors and representatives. The internationalization of exhibition is reflected in the specific requirements of exhibition organization.

Of course, the international advanced concept of holding exhibitions and holding meetings is also constantly developing and changing. For us, our exhibition industry needs to pay close attention to three points and make appropriate adjustments. First, the exhibition organizers should be more willing to invest and invite professional buyers and professional visitors; Second, take the initiative to use new technologies, such as on-site exhibitors and audience self-registration system; Third, the green trend of convention and exhibition industry.

Exhibitions or conferences sponsored by the government often have a strong administrative color in some links. For example, the opening ceremony must be grand, the guests present must be important people, and they pay great attention to the protocol order and administrative level in the aspects of leadership seating, ribbon cutting, speech and photo taking. This feature is localization, which requires exhibition service enterprises to follow this convention and administrative level and make reasonable arrangements according to the government's intention.

In fact, internationalization and localization sometimes conflict, and the best outcome is that both internationalization and localization are achieved.

Recently, the handling of the opening ceremony of 2009 China (Beijing) International Business and Awards Exhibition (CIBTM) held in the National Convention Center fully demonstrated the conflict between internationalization and localization.

From September 8th to 6:5438+00, 2009 China International Business and Awards Exhibition (CIBTM) was held in the National Convention Center. The organizer is the world-renowned British Reed Exhibitions Group, and the Beijing Tourism Bureau is the co-organizer. Most foreign exhibitions have no opening ceremony. Exhibitors, professional buyers and spectators go directly to the exhibition hall to discuss business. After the opening of the exhibition, the organizer will call the media and several exhibitors' representatives outside the exhibition hall or in another small conference room to hold a very simple opening ceremony in a very short time. The British Reed Exhibitions Group also stressed that there is no opening ceremony, only a press conference, which is in line with the characteristics of foreign exhibitions. But beijing tourism administration insisted on holding the opening ceremony. Otherwise, the city leaders and the tourism bureau will not cut the ribbon, and the media can't report it.

At this time, the National Convention Center will coordinate with the director of Reed Exhibitions in Britain-China people must have a decent opening ceremony and exhibition background board, and city leaders need to speak and take photos, so that the media can report on the banquet, which is also good for the promotion of the exhibition itself. Finally, the opening ceremony of this exhibition is less than 15 minutes after the exhibition starts, but it is a necessary procedure for the organizer, that is, the government, and it is indispensable for the internationalization of the exhibition led by the government.

It can be seen that if we want to run an exhibition with strong government color according to the concept of internationalization, there will be many contradictions with localization, but this does not mean that internationalization is not feasible. On the contrary, internationalization is necessary for government-led exhibitions, because the government also wants to make exhibitions more international, but our exhibition service enterprises should handle the relationship between them wisely.

Second, the market-oriented operation of the exhibition led by the government is a rare opportunity for exhibition service enterprises, but it also puts forward higher requirements. Exhibition service must be innovated to avoid low-price competition.

It is a trend for the government to outsource some exhibition and conference services to professional service companies, but at present, it is difficult to find enough professional companies to organize large-scale activities, which is one of the main reasons why permanent government agencies and organizing committees participate in more specific conference work. With the deepening of market-oriented operation, more exhibition service enterprises will get more business from the government, so it is a rare opportunity for enterprises.

"Less" is reflected in two aspects: First, the more government-led exhibitions, the more income enterprises will get; Second, government-led exhibitions are becoming more and more international, which allows enterprises to broaden their horizons, master international advanced means of organizing exhibitions and exercise their teams.

Now, some world-renowned professional conference service companies are gradually starting to do business in China. Coupled with the competition from many international public relations and event organizations, local exhibition service companies are facing more and more challenges from these international exhibition service companies. For example, there are many foreign exhibition companies participating in the Shanghai World Expo, which provides us with the opportunity of zero-distance learning.

Enterprises need to comprehensively improve the service quality in terms of personnel, technology and service processes, and grow as soon as possible. Here, human factors are crucial. Exhibition service, in the final analysis, lies in people. The language ability, knowledge and experience of employees determine the comprehensive competitiveness of an exhibition service enterprise.

For example, many international conferences held in China do not use simultaneous interpretation, and the demand for pure English meetings is a new challenge for the staff of the conference center. In July this year, the World Magic Conference held by our National Convention Center, all the rehearsals and competitions, whether the magician or the host, are in English, and the magic competition has very strict requirements on the coordination of lighting and sound. There must be no mistakes in the background music and lighting control, otherwise the effect of the competition will be greatly reduced or even failed. This puts high demands on our employees' English ability. After hard training, we successfully completed the reception task, and the president of the International Magic League praised it as the best magic competition. Customers' requirements for exhibition services are getting higher and higher, and service innovation has become an inevitable choice. In the past, the conference center mainly provided conference venues and on-site services, but today's customers need the conference center to provide more valuable derivative services to reduce dependence on third-party services. For example, customers hope that the conference center can provide an intelligent guidance system that can reflect their conference brand or corporate brand image, so as to avoid the cost of customizing the logo to a third party, and also hope that the conference center can provide banquets comparable to luxury hotels. Such changes in demand require us to pay more attention to service innovation. Therefore, our National Convention Center employs experienced foreigners as senior sales director, executive chef and operation director, provides luxury five-star hotel-level meals, increases the content of value-added services, and proactively issues press releases on customer exhibitions and conference projects to industry media and mass media to expand the influence of conference exhibitions. Because we know very well that low-price competition is by no means a way, in today's economic situation is not very optimistic, exhibition service enterprises need to avoid low-price competition through service innovation. Exhibition service enterprises should promote the government-led exhibition to develop in a professional direction.

We often say that the government-led exhibition is that the government sets up a stage and enterprises sing operas. What I want to appeal here is that not only exhibitors and exhibitors sing operas at the exhibition, but also more exhibition service enterprises take the initiative to participate in singing operas (services); Not only should the government outsource more exhibition services to enterprises, but enterprises should also do their best to help government-led exhibitions develop into professional and branded exhibitions with the government.

There are two meanings here: first, in the long run, only when the government-led exhibition develops into a professional exhibition can it be sustainable and enterprises can get long-term business; Second, if enterprises don't work hard and can't provide professional exhibition services, government-led exhibitions will face the problem of insufficient development momentum. Enterprises are the main body of the market, and now the massive government intervention is temporary. Therefore, in this sense, the government's support for government-led exhibitions should also focus on cultivating the organizational ability and service level of local exhibition service enterprises, and the support of the latter can better reflect the government's vision.

On the one hand, the government should consciously cultivate and support large-scale professional exhibition service enterprises. On the other hand, enterprises need to learn from advanced and mature exhibition methods to help government-led exhibitions gradually weaken the administrative color in workflow, service standards, marketing, brand building and team building, and develop in a professional direction.

As we all know, there is Tongrentang in the north and Qingyutang in the south. At the northern foot of Wu Shan in Hangzhou, there is a famous "Jiangnan Medicine King"-Hangzhou Huqingyutang. Hu Qingyutang, founded in 1874 by Hu Xueyan, a famous red-top businessman in Qing Dynasty, is now famous all over the world. Hu Qingyutang regards customers as "the source of life support" and serves warmly. He is considerate of customers and always serves them. Hu Qingyutang's hanging plaque "true price" is equally eye-catching, which tells us that high quality should be a good price. Where does Hu Qingyutang's competitiveness come from? This is "true procurement, fine repair". This ancestral motto is still inspiring today.

Beijing Tongrentang has also passed down 300 years of ancestral teachings. "Although the processing is complicated, you won't dare to save labor; Although the taste is expensive, I dare not reduce material resources. " This has created the extraordinary quality of Tongrentang, casting the golden signboard of Tongrentang for 300 years.

Similarly, for government-led exhibitions, our exhibition service enterprises also need to remember that our "source of livelihood" is the government. When serving government-led exhibitions, we should also "buy the truth, repair the system and improve the service" as Hu Qingyutang demanded. As Beijing Tongrentang demanded, "Although the processing is complicated, we dare not save labor; Although your taste is expensive, you won't dare to reduce your material resources. Make every effort to innovate and provide high-quality and reliable exhibition services.