Caspian Energy (CE): How would you evaluate the development of ITE’s exhibition business from global point of view?
Edward Strachan, Executive Director, ITE Group Plc in the Caspian Region: ITE enters the list of world’s 10 largest organizers of exhibitions and conferences. As a company specializing in developing markets, ITE is mainly oriented to markets of the CIS, Turkey and Central Asia. Today these regions are actively developing and represent particular interest for participants of our exhibitions.
We are proud that during our operation on those markets we have been successful to establish wide exhibition activity through our offices in Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Recently we have opened the office in India. Owning to the network the company is able to provide successful operation in those developing countries. In this connection one of ITE’s real aims for coming 5 years is to enter the number of top 5 largest organizers of exhibitions and conferences worldwide.
CE: One of the key events in the Caspian region is Caspian Oil & Gas Exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary next year. How would you assess progress this exhibition gained during those years?
Edward Strachan: Since the time when Azerbaijan gained independence, it has been the first specialized exhibition in this country. The largest in the Southern Caucasus Caspian Oil & Gas Exhibition, the locomotive of the exhibition business in the region, till present maintains its positions as one of the most prestigious forums that representatives of the oil-gas elite from all over the world look forward to and are getting ready for. Caspian Oil & Gas has become “the gate” to Azerbaijan for many oil and service companies later involved in many energy contracts in Azerbaijan. Every year more than 300 companies from 30 countries of the world participate in the largest and prestigious Azerbaijani exhibition.
Azerbaijan agencies and companies, including the Ministry of Industry and Energy of Azerbaijan, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), are incredibly contributing into the development of the exhibition.
CE: Caspian Oil and Gas conference is held in parallel with the exhibition. How did the exhibition change and the conference expand contents for 20 years?
Edward Strachan: Every year the conference becomes a tribune for hot topics of the oil and gas industry, bringing together over 500 specialists in early June. More and more new participants join the conference which has already formed a certain permanent staff of constant delegates and speakers. But, nevertheless, we try to keep a traditional format of the conference so that the participants can feel comfortably in the process of discussion of such important topics. In my opinion, this traditional character does matter for successful development of the Caspian Oil & Gas Conference.
CE: What will be key events of Caspian Oil & Gas in the jubilee year?
Edward Strachan: The jubilee of Caspian Oil & Gas is certainly very important for both our local office and all international offices that work on this project, attracting foreign companies. So, we are preparing a special program for the jubilee. We would like to keep in secret now all our jubilee-related plans, but I can assure that our participators will not be disappointed.
CE: How, in general, do you characterize exhibitions held in the Caspian region?
Edward Strachan: Now, the Caspian region markets, especially we, operate actively in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Along with this, exhibitions held in these countries are actively developing as well. I remember conduction of 2-3 events a year if we go back to the period when we started. A very favorable ground for development of exhibition-conference business has been improved in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s government supports flow of foreign companies, investors to the market of the country. It is known that exhibitions serve an ideal tool for that.
CE: Which exhibitions and conferences held in Azerbaijan could you note as particularly successful ones and what kind of innovations are planned to be introduced in the mentioned events?
Edward Strachan: Exhibitions we hold in Azerbaijan today are quite successful. Such projects as Caspian Oil and Gas, Bakubuild, BakuTel, AITF, BIHE and others have a solid history and gather leading companies at their show-floors. It is noteworthy that over the period of our work we faced cases when certain themes lost their importance later. For instance, several years ago we used to conduct CEM Consumer Electronics exhibition which is no longer included into the calendar due to the change of the strategy of electronics promotion. Nevertheless, we constantly conduct marketing researches and try to launch new themes on their basis. Therefore, we carefully watch over the market trends.
As far as the innovations are concerned, now we pay more attention to the development of our platforms. We improved the navigation of official websites of exhibitions by making them more comfortable and informative as well as launched the mobile versions of websites. Different social and business networks are broadly developed nowadays. We keep up with the time here as well. Each our project has pages in social networks and we actively try to place news, notify about opportunities that are provided to exponents during the exhibition. We apply different types of internet-services such as promotion clips, messages, etc. Electronic registration gained broader coverage. We are confident that Internet plays and will keep playing an important role in our life but nothing will ever be able to replace real human communication, and the role of exhibitions and conferences will keep growing as well. Therefore, our strategy envisages application of different Internet-technologies for facilitating the communication between participants, exponents and visitors during exhibitions.
CE: A number of exhibitions held in Baku passed UFI certification. Will it promote turning of Baku into a regional exhibition center?
Edward Strachan: We have been cooperating with UFI for several years and such exhibitions as Caspian Oil and Gas, BIHE, BakuBuild, WorldFood, AITF regularly undergo audit and have a quality mark. Exhibition audit institute has been functioning in the world for over 40 years. UFI acknowledges authenticity of the statistics that is provided by organizers of conferences and exhibitions. The statistics includes facts of participation of companies, amount of visitors, conformity of exhibition platform and the whole infrastructure to international regulations. Audit results are published in popular international special reference manuals and this information helps entrepreneurs while selecting exhibitions.
I would like to note that exhibition audit is a professional and intelligent approach to conduction and participation in exhibitions, it is a real help to an entrepreneur and producer, state official and a businessman. It helps entrepreneurs to choose an exhibition their products will be viewed by targeted visitors while the latter get a chance to participate in the representative exhibition.
I would like to note that ITE Group places special emphasis on compliance of all safety regulations during performance of assembling work and exhibition itself. At our initiative, International independent audit company has this year inspected Baku Expo Center, where Iteca Caspian conducts all exhibition events, conformity to highest safety standards. In this regard, we are pleased to provide our participants not only a perfect opportunity for establishment and development of business relations but also guarantee observance of all safety regulations at exhibitions.
However, conduction of audit is only a small link on the way to Baku’s turning into an exhibition center. Baku Expo Center exhibition complex’s opening has been promoting Baku’s attraction for international forums and congresses for the past years. Our permanent participants who follow us in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan during exhibitions note that Baku Expo Center complies with modern standards and raises the level of exhibitions that Azerbaijan hosts. Such a tight cooperation between local and foreign offices of ITE certainly makes us conclude that Baku’s role as the regional exhibition center will be growing.
CE: What would you like to wish our readership who has been observing the exhibition for many years?
Edward Strachan: I wish all Caspian Energy readers success and using the opportunity would like to invite them to our 2013 exhibitions especially to the jubilee Caspian Oil and Gas exhibition which will be held in Baku Expo Centers from June 4 to 7. I am confident that it will be an important event both for the oil-gas industry and public life of Azerbaijan.