130,000 trade show visitors provide encouragement for exhibitors

Trade shows are valued highly by visitors like these at BETT (image courtesy of The Exhibition Agency).

Back in the distant past, 2018, to be exact, 130,000 trade show visitors in 135 different countries stated their views about trade shows.

 And because trade events are resuming now in a big way (hooray!), you'll likely find their answers very encouraging.

 Although carried out in December 2018, this research is still valid and helpful concerning attitudes to visiting events.

 The survey, commissioned by UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, was very in-depth and was conducted at the end of a very busy event year.

 UFI asked event visitors for their opinion about the usefulness of events.

 Here are the findings that leapt out to us.

 No. 1: Visitor experience was stable

 The UFI survey asked respondents for their overall satisfaction ratings for trade shows. 71% rated their experience as very or fairly satisfied.

 That statistic compared with 70% and 67% for 2017 and 2016, respectively.

 If you couple this stat with the one that asks, “How frequently do visitors expect to attend trade shows in future?”

 No.2: 16% of respondents stated they would be using trade shows more frequently, and 68% said they would continue to attend as often as they do now.

 And, this is the very encouraging part;

No. 3: Visitor numbers at trade shows were not going to diminish anytime soon (well, not until COVID hit the world)

•          In 2018, more than 300 million* people attended an exhibition.

•          Europe ranked first in terms of total visitors with 112 million visitors who attended to meet 1.3 million exhibitors

•          In 2018, approximately 32,000* exhibitions took place worldwide.     

No. 4: Why visitors said they attended trade shows

•              44% said they went to source a product

•              43% wanted to find new ideas

•              39% said it was to network

•              34% attended to stay abreast with what was happening in their    industry

 No. 5: Did visitors expect to see a bigger increase in their consumption of other channels vs trade shows?

 UFI asked how trade shows compared with other marketing channels and whether consumption would increase a little more frequently or much more frequently.

•              43% of respondents expected to increase consumption of social media

•              41% expected an increase in the consumption of online training

•              35% said that they expected time allocated to trade magazines would increase

•              32% thought that consumption of online markets would increase

•              32% believed that conference attendance would be more frequent

•              26% answered that attendance to trade shows would increase

 And those two last stats are an excellent place to finish.

 Other than to say, we would be delighted to design a stand that will help you meet more of the people you’d like to be doing business with next time you exhibit.

To get things started, email [email protected] or call 01702 662 111.