August we were confidently told would be a quiet month. Everyone goes on holiday they said, good time to take leave they said, Milan is practically asleep and empty they said, and so on.
Well I can certainly testify that’s true if you need to get some dry cleaning done, print a poster or get a delivery on site for something frivolous like say, food. But not when it comes to visitors to Expo itself.
I guess as the makeup of our visitors to the UK Pavilion has been around 70% Italian it possibly includes my local dry cleaner, printer and delivery driver happily drinking Pimms and eating fish and chips on our terrace in the sun, when they could be in work making my life easier.
In the last week we’ve broken our own record for the most people in a single day three times. It now stands at around 28,600, and I’m proud to say in that great British tradition of being able to organise a queue, our waiting time is around 15 mins, compared to 2-3 hours for some others. We also remain one of the most visited of the Pavilions on site and we recently featured in a regional wide poster campaign for Expo.
Talking of British traditions, my Italian colleagues find it incredible that I come to work every day in a suit and tie. I of course always remind them that an Englishman is quite impervious to heat. I understand we’ve also been voted the country most likely to carry an umbrella and least likely to open one.
Despite an August reduction in official and business visits, there have been some other big activities across Expo. The most important being the celebration of UN Humanitarian day, when I was very proud to walk as part of the parade down the middle of the main street of the site with four of our staff.
Two were carrying the Union Jack and two the P and the A in the word IMPARTIALITY (above) alongside colleagues from the USA, UN and Spain. Many countries and International Organisations took part carrying 8 words between them. A really good example of when you can take the opportunity of having two thirds of the world represented, to stage this kind of event.
It’s been such a busy August we’ve just passed 1.4 million visitors, and as you can imagine just by the sheer volume and law of averages that’s led to some interesting conversations with our guides. One visitor wanted to know why we weren’t stocking any British beers in our restaurant, when it was pointed out we had them available from all corners of the UK he said ‘no I mean Fosters’. Another wanted to know if we could change the live video link from inside the beehive to Sky because he didn’t really like bees and he was missing the football.
Still the vast majority (around 95%) rated the experience from good to excellent, so this blog goes out with a huge thank you to all the Pavilion staff who are making such a difference to the customer experience and helping to promote such a positive impression of the UK.
By: explaining, interacting and discovering ever deeper levels of compassion (for a inconsolable little boy of five who’d missed getting his Expo ‘passport’ stamped) and patience (the ‘I don’t like bees’ man) and calm (when dealing with a lady who trapped her hand in a door in the toilet).
So please come and visit, the number of UK Nationals visiting is still a pretty small percentage, recently overtaken by the Chinese and they have much further to come, so really there’s no excuse.
See you in the autumn…
