This guidance prepared by the International Association of Convention Centres (AIPC), the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) and the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI)
aims to help convention and exhibition centres, event and congress organizers and meeting destinations
prepare for a smooth, safe reopening of business following the initial outbreak of COVID-19.
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has had as profound and unprecedented as impact on the industry as it has
on commerce and society at large. Virtually all convention and exhibition centres and services worldwide were forced to cease operations as the initial wave of infections expanded ever further. In early March 2020, the AIPC and UFI released good practice guidance to help members manage the unfolding crisis, and in April 2020, further guidance on repurposing a convention or exhibition centre to serve as a temporary emergency facility. It is a role that many centres embraced to serve their community in a time of need, even if they were never designed to become emergency hospitals, housing facilities, or auxiliary health test sites.
This guidance, then, centers on the next phase, reopening for business, with the AIPC, ICCA and UFI joining forces to source and marshal good practice from around the world.
The need for the AIPC, ICCA and UFI at the beginning of this new era of ‘post the emergence of COVID-19’ to (again) band together and collaborate closely is hard to overstate. The reason is that there is a major knowledge void around how to operate events properly, safety and responsibly while exact requirements in most countries are still little defined.