The organisers of the American pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will be gathering data to present the business case for companies participating in future world expos, according to Greg Houston, the CEO of Pavilion USA 2020.
In an interview with Arabian Business, Houston said that the University of Southern California School of Public Diplomacy – led by world expo expert Dr. Jay Wong – has been brought into the consortium involved in the US pavilion at the upcoming event.
Houston said that Dr. Wong and his team will be developing “metrics for outcomes”, some in collaboration with the pavilion’s sponsors, each of which have their own goals in terms of returns on investment (ROIs).
“What I want to leave with from the Expo is data for the next expo,” Houston said. “When I talk to a sponsor, [currently] I don’t have data from previous expos to show that this is a good investment. We know it’s a good investment, because we can feel it and experienced it, but the data doesn’t exist.”
This data from Expo 2020 Dubai, he added, will allow the organisers of future expo pavilions to explain “from the ground up” why companies should participate.
“Our goal is to leave a whole data table that the next group can take forward and say that this is a great investment for a company, and in which you can see 4:1, 5:1, 10:1 returns on investments by being involved in the US pavilion,” he said.
Additionally, he noted that Expo 2020 Dubai represents one of the largest private-public partnerships currently being undertaken by the US Department of State.
“The UAE is one of the very key allies of the United States, so being here, having a strong presence, is a major priority for the State Department,” he said.
“There’s no bigger investment that the US will be doing in public diplomacy for the next period of time than this, so they are standing behind this in every way that they can.”
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