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Beijing, China will be canceling all large scale exhibitions and events for the remainder of August, according to a 6 August 2021 article in The Wall Street Journal.
Events canceled include the Third Annual World 5G Conference, which was to be held in a 215,000 sq. ft. exhibition facility; the same facility was to host, later in August, the World Robot Conference, which in 2019—before COVID—drew 30,000 attendees; the promoters of that event expect the Beijing government to tell them to postpone.
Since mid-July, China has been experiencing a series of outbreaks caused by the Delta variant of COVID-19, which is said to be more contagious and faster spreading than the variants seen initially.
China’s official state-run news agency announced that such measures are deemed necessary because “prevention and control of the epidemic is currently the most important priority in the city of Beijing.” The country’s National Health Commission logged 62 new cases nationwide on 4 August. (There was no mention of whether those cases had resulted in hospitalizations or deaths; China is a nation of some 1.4 billion people).
China is not alone in exercising extreme caution as a reaction to the Delta variant, with little regard to the economic fallout. The New York International Auto Show has been canceled, and country music’s Garth Brooks is said to be considering aborting his stadium tour.
The WSJ also notes that Frontier Airlines is experiencing a slowdown in bookings that is atypical for this time of year, and that, too, is attributed to the Delta strain.
TREND FORECAST: We note this article to illustrate that with the fear of the Delta variant spreading and trade shows and conventions cancelling events, this is just one example of how all the new COVID mandates will result in an economic contraction.
Indeed, the last wave of lockdowns and restrictions was especially tough on the trade show and exhibition industry, which has yet to fully recover. We explained this in July 2020’s “U.K. EVENTS INDUSTRY DYING” Trends Journal article.