IITF - 32 years - at the crossroads

As a visitor of the trade fair from its 3rd edition till now i have seen the same grow from one populated with state pavilions, then the SAARC nations and more recently the chinese invasion - it has been one of great anticipation every year.

As school kids we would roam the 2 days of the weekend and generally hang around the book stores and hope that on the last day - the owners would sell us some books at deeply discounted rates as books weigh a lot to ship back!!

Those were the times when terorrism was somthing in Punjab and Kashmir and rest of India was a different state. The cops on duty would allow us school students in for free!! BUt something happened post liberalisation in '91 - the liberalised cops became overnight money makers!! Anyways i digress, the main theme of this note is to comment on the IITF itself.

The IITF has now become a major marketing extravaganza in the Indian calendar and as such the denizens of Delhi NCR look forward to a fortnight of shoping frenzy. This is India's own shopping festival to rival the one of Dubai. And herein lies the oppotunity lost.

It is beyond one's thinking as to why the concept of a global village (as in Dubai) and its shopping festival have still not been imported here by the IITF?

The state pavilions are closed the year round except for these 14days and maybe the odd day or two in the year when the respective state governmenets have some state events/ functions. These pavilions can be used as the global village options during the rest of the year and for one week of the IIFT the same can be part of the exhibitors and open to only business visitors. This would also stagger the crowds throughout the year and also make delhi a more pleasurable destination for the tourists who otherwise have a forced diet of "death mounuments" starting with gandhi, indira, rajiv, etc etc and also their homes which are now "museums" (a subtle land grab of sorts?).

The trade fair if it does not reinvent itself sooner rather than later - it may soon be consigned to the back benchers in international trade fairs and it may just remain as a marketing show for local demestic retail customers (as i fear it has already become the past 4-5years).