What Happens When You Analyze an Entire Industry Event as One Supply Chain?
- Veronica Celis
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
How Valumia revealed hidden sustainability and resilience risks across 855 companies, and why this matters far beyond the attractions industry
Two weeks ago, we stood on stage at IAAPA Expo 2025 in Orlando to give my first-ever talk at the event. I’m still slightly overwhelmed by the scale of it all. If you’ve ever attended, you know what I mean: thousands of people, hundreds of companies, constant motion, innovation everywhere you look.
IAAPA Expo is the world’s largest trade show for the attractions and leisure industry, bringing together manufacturers, operators, technology providers, cultural institutions, and entertainment businesses from across the globe. But beyond the rides, booths, and conversations, there is something else quietly holding the entire event together, something most people never see.
A supply chain.
Not one company’s supply chain, but hundreds of them, intersecting, overlapping, and depending on one another. And that invisible system was the real subject of the talk we presented at the IAAPA stage in Orlando, and of this article.
Because for the first time, we analyzed IAAPA Expo not as an event, but as what it truly represents: a dense concentration of global value chains. We analyzed 855 exhibitors as if they were one unified supply chain, and what we found matters far beyond the attractions industry.
Why Most Companies Don’t See Supply Chain Risks Coming
Let’s start with a number that often surprises people: 94% of companies have no visibility into the risks hidden within their supply chains. That statistic tends to trigger guilt or defensiveness, but honestly? We find it entirely understandable.
Small and medium-sized companies, the backbone of almost every industry, work with an average of 800 suppliers. That’s roughly nine times more suppliers than employees. Even within your own team, people you see every week, it can be hard to know who is struggling, who is close to burnout, or who might leave unexpectedly.
Now imagine trying to maintain that same level of awareness across hundreds of companies, scattered across continents, operating in different regulatory systems, cultures, and time zones. With the structural complexity that it entails.
And yet, this lack of visibility has real consequences. Supply chain disruptions cost companies between 6 and 10 percent of annual revenue on average, and they can damage brand reputation just as often as they disrupt operations. Visibility is not a “nice to have.” It is the difference between resilience and fragility.
Turning an Expo Into a Supply Chain
Ahead of IAAPA Expo 2025, the Valumia team used our supply chain intelligence technology to analyze the exhibitors that had published sufficient information through IAAPA Connect+ by mid-October. That cutoff was necessary to ensure results could be processed, reviewed, and validated in time for the event. We did not analyze every exhibitor, and that limitation is important.
We ran the analysis in two layers:
1️⃣ Supplier-Level Sustainability & Governance Scores
For each exhibitor included in the analysis, we began by evaluating their sustainability and governance commitments. This first layer looks at the essentials: whether a company has environmental management practices in place, whether it measures and reports emissions, and whether it publishes CSR or broader sustainability policies. We also examine commitments to worker health and safety, fair compensation, and data protection, elements that speak to the company’s social and governance maturity.
An important distinction in this assessment is whether any of these commitments are externally verified. A company that sets measurable goals and submits them to third-party validation sits at the top of the scale with what we call a Certified Commitment. At the opposite end are companies that disclose no sustainability or governance information at all. Most suppliers fall somewhere between these two poles.
The image below shows the results of this, the first layer of our analysis. To put it plainly: this year’s Expo's "supply chain" or the 855 exhibitors we did analyze, still have considerable room for improvement.
2️⃣ Geopolitical & Systemic Risk Exposure
Once the supplier-level review was complete, we zoomed out and placeed each company within its operating environment. This second layer focuses on geopolitical and systemic risks that influence the stability of a supply chain. Using internationally recognized indicators, we assessed the quality of governance in each supplier’s region, factors such as rule of law, regulatory quality, political stability, and government effectiveness. We also examined exposure to more severe risks, including modern slavery, corruption, conflict and violence, and the degree to which citizens have voice and accountability.
The findings were significant. Nearly 12% of exhibitors operate in locations where geopolitical risks are emerging or intensifying, whether due to political instability or declining institutional quality.
One exhibitor is based in an environment facing severe exposure to conflict and violence. And roughly 9%, or around 74 companies, are operating in regions with critical risks related to lack of voice and accountability.
If this distribution reflected your company’s own supply chain, these would be the suppliers you would want to keep closest, not as a punitive measure, but as a practical one. Understanding their realities, maintaining communication, and offering support where possible are all ways to prevent small disruptions from turning into major operational failures.
Why This Matters (Even If You’re Not in Attractions)
This is the first time an industry has seen its collective risks surfaced at this scale, and that matters because you cannot manage what you cannot see. The attractions industry is built on joy, but behind every moment of joy lies an extraordinarily complex system. Steel, electronics, chemicals, logistics, labor, food systems, all must function seamlessly for the guest experience to work. One delayed shipment, one factory disruption, one regulatory change, and the effects are immediate.
This dynamic is not unique to amusement parks. It applies just as strongly to manufacturing, retail, construction, food, energy, and technology. At the same time, companies across sectors are facing intensifying climate risks, rapidly evolving regulation, rising due-diligence expectations, and customers who increasingly care how products are made, not just how they perform.
The direction of travel is clear. This type of analysis will not remain optional. Suppliers will increasingly be evaluated through sustainability and risk lenses before contracts are signed, not after disruptions occur. IAAPA Expo 2025 offered a preview of that future.
Resilience does not come from optimism. It comes from visibility. Even an imperfect outline is better than none, because once something becomes visible, it becomes manageable. And once manageable, it becomes improvable. And once improvable, it becomes resilient.