One of the world’s biggest exhibition companies is reportedly set to shed at least 500 staff members by the end of the year.
London’s Financial Times reported that Reed Exhibitions’ spate of redundancies appears to be part of the company’s recovery process as the events industry begins its slow recovery from the global pandemic,.
At least one of the redundancies reported was Reed Exhibitions Australia’s senior executive, John Gorton, who announced his departure on LinkedIn on Friday.
“After an immensely rewarding and enjoyable 17 years with the great company that is Reed Exhibitions, I reflect with gratitude and pride on my role in building and leading high-performance teams, driving business growth and delivering exceptional customer value through best-in-class events and digital products,” he said.
In a statement, Reed Exhibitions said the many thousands of employees at the company remain “committed to all the sectors and geographies in which we operate” and that it looks forward to launching hundreds of exhibitions worldwide as soon as it is possible.
“As a responsible company, we are implementing necessary cost reductions across our global organisation, and in 2021 are looking to run at least 90 per cent of the annual events by revenue that we ran in 2019,” the company said.
According to Exhibition News, Reed’s parent company, Relx, said it wanted to cut costs at the exhibition company by almost $200 million in October last year, well before the global pandemic began.
The Financial Times reported the company’s revenue for this year could be as low as $600 million, compared with last year’s $2.3 billion.
Travel Weekly has contacted Reed Exhibitions for comment.
Featured image source: iStock/Kameleon007
