An Unexpected Trap - About an Waterproofing Exhibition in Nanjing, China

by Eric Chen, sep. 19, 2006

Noticed that a waterproofing exhibition called Nanjing Waterproofing Exhibtion 2006 will be held in these days in Nanjing, I contacted an organizer for more detail information. The location of this organzer, which is in Wuxi instead of in Nanjing, looks a little bit weird. But anyway, a person of the company sent me a fax with a layout of the stands of all the exhibitors in this waterproofing exhibition.

Taking no doubt on this fax and the layout on it, I took the high speed train from Shanghai to Nanjing, spent more than two hours on the way, and arrived at the city quite on time. Without any difficulty, I hailed a taxi and got to the Nanjing Exhibition Center, in which the waterproofing exhibition should locate.

But actullay, all is a trap to me. The organizer cheated me with forged information. To my surprise, in the exhibition hall, I found no one of the companies listed on the fax the organizer provided. So I went up to the service desk and checked what hell the problem was. Frustrating again, the staffs of the exhibition center were absolutely not professional and accountable. Mading up my mind to kick the whole things out, I finally found the person who was willing to explain the operation of this exhibition to me. The chief organizer, Nanjing Exhibition Center, outsourced and subcontracted the marketing and sales to three exhibition services companies, one of them Wuxi. Some of these companies split the whole exhibition into several exhibitions for specialized industries, such as building materials industry, digital media industry, and machinery industry, making each of them sound like a whole and independent trade show with some important companies or organizations on the list.

Clearly, this kind of subcontracting undermines the reputation and liability of Nanjing Expo Center and even the city Nanjing. Visitors, some of which could be potential exhibitors in the future will definetely lose interest. The lack of control taken by the head organizer to its service providers does halm the whole business in the future.

Ironically, the person who tried to round up his explanation and story obviously know the problem and could address it to prevent such kind of loss. Unfortunetely, he didn't.

This is an vivid example about how the economy misses the chances to improve the productivity. At least, the Wuxi company benefits from this deal, whereas majority of the economy and society lose.

Admittedly, this exhibition is still something. You can still see visitors surrounding the products they have interest in and asking details and prices. However, without the qualified manage team, the trade show will quite certainly remain a local one and lose in the competition with those in Shanghai. Maybe you can see government touting its investment parks and incentives in front of their international counterpart, but without an efficient and prosperous local economy, most of the people will continue to be kept working and gain little.