Mastering Meetings at China Trade Fairs

After all that preparation and hassle, you finally arrive in China for your all-important trade fair. You would want to maximize your time here, and good preparation for meetings with suppliers determines your trip's success. Here are some handy tips.

By Klaus-Dieter Hanke

First Trade Fair Day
Ensure you are sufficiently energized after a good night's sleep, and ready for your first day at the trade fair.

If you start in Hong Kong you should have received your visitor pass in the mail prior to coming, so you can skip the queue and jump right in. If you are in China, you may need to register either at your hotel or near the entrance area of the exhibition centre to receive your entry badge.

Your Meeting Plan
The first thing you want to do is to buy a trade fair catalogue and retreat to a quiet spot where you can plan the day's meetings with prospective suppliers. Almost all trade fair venues will have coffee shops that are perfect for this.

Before you arrive, you should have made initial contact with some prospective suppliers, and noted their booth numbers and locations. It is easier to organize your meetings based on their locations around the fair grounds.

If you have downloaded the floor plan of the Trade Fair venue earlier on, you can save even more time by planning in the comfort of your hotel room. Spending some time on the Internet locating the floor plan is worth the effort because it makes your legwork more efficient at the actual fair.

Schedules always run out of their intended times at trade fairs. If you try to arrange meetings at specific times during the exhibition, you will find your schedule spinning out of control after only one or two meetings.

Be realistic in your planning. The next section should give you an idea what is realistic and what is not.

Trade Fair Hours
Here are the typical opening hours for major Hong Kong Trade Fairs and the Canton Trade Fair:
Hong Kong - 9:30 AM - 6:30 PM = 9 hours per day; the last day is only from 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM

Canton - 9:30 AM - 6:00 PM = 8 1/2 hours per day for all 50 exhibition days

Assuming you want to visit each Trade Fair for the full three days, you have a total of only 27 hours for Hong Kong and 25 1/2 hours for Guanghzou to find what you need. Most visitors are not present at the trade fair venue every single day, because they need travel time between Hong Kong and Guangzhou or other destinations.

If you have meetings scheduled with 10 key suppliers for an hour each, you end up having only 17 hours for other meetings in Hong Kong and 15 1/2 hours in Guangzhou.

Other meetings might last approximately half-an-hour each. At these you will only collect catalogues and leave your business card. For a very busy visit this works out to meeting 34 additional suppliers in Hong Kong and 31 in Guangzhou.

But let's be realistic — you need restroom breaks, waiting periods for your contact person to be free, meal breaks, and time to walk from one booth to another. After these deductions, you will be surprised how little time is available for additional supplier meetings.

Don't call me a pencil pusher for giving such nagging details! That's what a realistic plan is all about.