Virtual Becomes Reality
It’s not often that Martin Moodie and I can exchange frank views about industry matters. When we do, our thinking is often aligned, but we also have some healthy differences, too. So when he and Dermot Davitt launched Virtual Travel Retail Expo 2020, I felt it incumbent, with my trunblocked.com hat on, to ask Martin for an in-depth interview that would shed light on a project that, in a few short months, has genuinely rocked the industry and will most probably be the benchmark for many of the industry’s events in the years to come.
No punches are pulled in this head to head. The interview provides a clear rationale and back story to the launch, what Virtual Expo is designed to achieve and how it will work. Yes, we cover some of the reaction from the trade, too. Martin’s responses provide compelling reading.
But the interview offers much more than just underpinning the rationale for this shape-shifting industry project. It also offers an appreciation and understanding of what makes Martin tick as an individual. In that sense it is a deeply personal interview and is all the better for it.
PM: Martin, what were the principal drivers behind The Moodie Davitt Report establishing Virtual Expo? Survival, an appreciation of the way the business needs to move forward, or both?
MM: All of the above Peter! I saw the COVID-19 threat to travel retail and to our business early – we started covering it on January 6th and we had a dedicated daily COVID-19 column by 21st January.
Having run a business through SARS, I knew that the newest coronavirus had serious implications both for the channel in general but also for my business which, as a ‘free to air’ product, is heavily reliant on advertising and physical events. We had our Airport Food & Beverage (FAB) Conference and Awards planned for June and the Trinity Forum (with ACI and ACI Asia-Pacific) in October, respectively. In our February webinar, Dr. David Heymann, who headed the global response to SARS in 2003, made it abundantly clear that mass physical face-to-face meetings would be seriously compromised for some time to come. The travel retail industry would have to relearn some of its practices for the foreseeable future in terms of large meetings, he said. You don’t ignore such messages.
While vowing that my publishing business would shine through the crisis – which I believe it has – I knew that our business model would mean massive pressures on revenues. After all, our income comes from advertising and physical events. We have never charged the industry a single cent in subscription fees despite the quality of service we try to provide.
Those were the defensive motivations if you like. But I also saw the need for the industry to meet in a more cost-effective and time-effective way – without any risk of health compromise, to help stimulate the business as it reached towards some semblance of recovery. The answer was obvious. It had to be virtual.
PM: Looking at the build of the site, it’s still new, unproven territory for all. Do you think that you might be cluttering it now with too many zones? What research did you employ to get to this?
MM: It’s not cluttered at all. Quite the opposite. It’s clean, logically segmented and well sign-posted, and in fact a whole lot easier to navigate than a physical trade show. But people should stop comparing one with the other – the virtual and the physical. They should be complementary. In this year, however, virtual is all there is, so embrace it.
Research? I backed my instinct and we spoke to the industry. And we’re still speaking. The zones are evolving, by the way, and we have some brilliant surprises in store from companies of all sizes. The people we are speaking within the many brand partners who have already committed include some of the best digital minds you will meet. They are pushing us constantly and also exciting us with what they plan to bring to the Virtual Expo.
