Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
The recent Spanish media reports of #MWC2021 being cancelled or postponed have forced the director of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and CEO of the GSMA, John Hoffman to come out and deny this.
In a statement made on Friday February 12, 2021 he stated that the event will go ahead between June 28 and July 1 in Barcelona and has said that it will be “safe, hybrid and vibrant”.
He trotted out the usual line “we work tirelessly with Fira de Barcelona, the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, and Tourism of Barcelona to make the event happen, blah, blah, blah” but was forced to admit that “the continuous travel restrictions will mean fewer visitors than in the past”. He needed to add here, fewer exhibitors too!
Last year, the GSMA were forced to cancel the event and he referred to that in his statement, saying that the decision then was the correct one “because it helped to stop the spread of the virus, saving people’s lives as a result”. This is perhaps a strange thing to say because 12 months later we now know how serious #COVID19 is and globally have 2.4 Million #Covid19 deaths to prove it. Even with the right precautions in Barcelona, surely there is a real danger that it could be a super spreader event? If you look around Europe, the pandemic is certainly not getting any better quickly enough.
Whilst he did not go into detail, he indicated that numerous security measures will be added to mitigate risks and maintain a safe and controlled environment during the event. One assumes these are similar to Integrated Systems Europe’s announcement for #ISE2021, namely “ISE has been working in close participation with the City of Barcelona, the venue and relevant authorities. The Fira de Barcelona received the ‘Safe Travels’ stamp for its prevention and safety protocol against the transmission of COVID-19, merited by the World Travel Tourism Council (WTTC). Safety measures have been developed with the specialist risk management consultancy Aon and the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona”.
Despite his protestations that the event will go head and that it will be safe, I suspect what we will see now, is many of the exhibitors who pulled out last year, make similar announcements over the next few weeks with regard cancelling.
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