France – International bed bug week – day 2

Hi Guys,

I feel like Alistair Cooke or Alan Whicker preparing the day’s copy.

Today was a bit of a curate’s egg. The audience was disappointingly decimated by a last minute strike which prevented many of our guests getting to the venue. Having said that we did end up with some quality / big players and Tom also got a few customers in.

Mike Potter our American prof. put in a great show on the history of bed bugs and why the only way forward was to engage a leading PCO which knew what they were doing with a combination of proactive inspections and appropriate response depending on what was found.

Alain did a great job describing the Rentokil technical approach. One customer described some war stories and gave Rentokil a glowing testimony on how we had sorted their bed bug problem over a number of years. I concluded with a piece on Heat treatment.

The whole event was managed very professionally by Stephane (French marketing manager) and offered simultaneous translation for guests who required it.

New technology being used in France  stimulated some discussion with a customer effectively offering to be one of the first companies to field trial. It transpired that they have a significant issue with bed bugs and appear not to be happy with their current PCO.

One of the transport companies apparently have some significant issues with bed bugs on their rolling stock and union issues arising from staff who have been bitten by bed bugs whilst on company business in hotels. Both provide interesting leads which Julien will follow up on.

So not a bad day – we also effectively trialled the seminar and have learnt where we can make some improvements.

Finally, it looks as if the PR group are working overtime as we anticipate a radio interview next Monday with BBC local radio and interviews on Tuesday with the Irish Examiner and a national radio interview with The Macrieff show in Ireland.

Here is your very own correspondent signing off TTFN. Next report from Milan on Thursday.

Cheers

Pete

(Back to Day 1)