Q. What is the current state of Indian Exhibition Industry?
A. There’s an amazing vibrancy which is reflected in a growth unparalleled to any other country .
Q. What is the contribution of exhibition in MICE (business Tourism)?
A. According to a report 54% of the travelers to India are business/Mice Travelers. Business tourism is now becoming a major component of our industry today. In the same context , there’s also a big spurt in medical and religious tourism – two areas which get unnoticed in terms of their revenue contributions our industry.
Q. Exhibition enable business opportunities, can you give some examples to suffice this statement?
A. I can give you examples from our own logistics business . One such case is of machine tool exhibitions. Some years ago ,these shows majority exhibitors were foreign companies displaying machines . Today, these companies are still exhibiting, but their machines on display are manufactured by their Indian established companies.
Q. How have you seen the Indian Exhibition Industry evolve in last 3 years in terms of Exhibitor and visitor participation, Venue enhancement, satisfaction of participants, mindset of the stakeholders towards the industry and participation and support of the Government toward the industry?
A. The Indian exhibition industry has matured immensely in the last few years . There is now greater focus on quality , digitization , customer satisfaction , and related issues of sustainability and health & safety. Sadly , government support to our industry is still not upto our desired levels .
Q. What is the mindset of youth/millennials towards this industry?
A. The awareness is still lacking , thus a limited interest. I give credit to you for recently having a Youth Challenge competition revolving around our industry. The IEIA also has this on its agenda. We already have a subsidized youth enrollment fee for young members . And we’ll also soon be initiating an awareness drive in many universities across India.
Q. As an employer, how do you build/grow the careers of your employees?
A. The first step is to treat your employee as your family member . At the same time , enforce professionalism into your employee’s mindset . Once done, a mutual strong trust will get established on its own. With a personal and professional relationship based on complete trust established, my employees careers grow on their own . This is the truth, not myth , at RE Rogers .
Q. How do you inspire your people in your team to give their best output?
A. Having full trust in them and genuinely believing they’re my family is enough to inspire them . Again, this is the truth, not myth, at RE Rogers.
Q. What is going to be the game-changer for the industry in the coming time.
A. Greatly enhanced venue capacities is the major game-changer in the coming times . The ‘new’ Pragati Maidan , Dwarka , enlarged BIEC/IEML/HITEX , renovated BEC, Reliance, etc. will give a new life to our industry.
Q. What are the major challenges which the industry must address to grow further?
A. Ease to do business’ in India is still the biggest challenge for our industry .
The government has already done a lot and I’m confident the newly re-elected ‘strong’ government will move on a much faster pace on this front .
Q. What is the watchword for the future?
A. One word, ‘digitalization’, is the mantra of success for our future .
