EXHIBITION ORGANISERS COUNCIL OF INDIA STARTS OPERATIONS, APPOINTS KEY MANAGEMENT TEAM

EXHIBITION ORGANISERS COUNCIL OF INDIA STARTS OPERATIONS, APPOINTS KEY MANAGEMENT TEAM

THE ASSOCIATION NEWS, INDIA, 03 Dec 2020

Council of Indian Exhibition Organisers (CIEO) legal entity approved by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, starts operations The most awaited ‘Exhibition Organisers Council’ in India is now functional and accepting memberships from Exhibition Organises operating in India, irrespective of their origin.

The first eight-member ‘Steering Committee’ which is to be expanded to twelve had an e-meeting to discuss the immediate opportunities and challenges the Exhibition Organisers are facing in India especially in the backdrop of the Covid 19 Pandemic. CIEO Steering committee in alphabetical order: Balvinder Singh Sawhney from FICCI, Kailash Murarka from AIPMA, Manish Gandhi from ABEC, M Q Syed from EXHICON, Rajan Sharma from Interads, and Rajesh Bhagat from Worldex, Seema Srivastava from India ITME and Sukhjinder Singh from Infinity Expo.

The committee also approved the appointments of key human resources for marketing, advisory, partnerships and communications with industry stakeholders. The new executive team comprises key appointments of Shekhar Shridhankar, an Industry veteran, formerly with India ITME, to be responsible for Advisory for CIEO & Sandeep Singh, a decade experience holder in the exhibition industry as Director of Marketing and Projects. Tasks tabled to be taken up immediately

• CIEO will start communicating with state and central Governments to restart exhibitions & conferences with necessary precautions and to differentiate B2B exhibitions from mass gatherings.

• Encourage exhibitors and visitors to restart participating in exhibitions

• To start awareness campaigns for the benefits exhibitions offer over other media in such situations.

• To explore financial benefits by Government to aid MSME organisers and enterprises and guide them on how to leverage the same.

• Find means and ways for due recognition of the Exhibition industry by the Government as an integral part of nation building.

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• Most members were of the view that online exhibitions would not replace physical exhibitions as there have been not many success cases so far and the decision to go online or continue offline exhibitions or hybrid model would best be left for individual companies to decide.

• As a Council we should not drive decisions or provide any recommendations but facilitation in case of any tool chosen by the members. Meeting with Concerned Ministries CIEO will approach Government ministries to drive benefits for the sector. CIEO recommends to go with a researched white-paper endorsed by a think tank.

Other issues to be taken up

1.  Collectively discussing with venues held by both Government and private sector for best possible rentals, benefits for the members working on SOP’s, etc.

2.  MSME registration drive for exhibition organisers.

The membership of the council is now open for the exhibition organisers operating in India.

About CIEO : CIEO is the answer to a long-pending need amongst exhibition organisers to form an only organisers forum, where the concerns and issues of organisers could be addressed and represented which could further complement and supplement the work done by existing industry bodies. More details on www.cieo.in, info@cieo.in