DALLAS, TX – Trade show attendees often have a personal agenda to go along with their marching orders from headquarters when they make the trip to an exhibition, a new report by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) concluded.
The report, What Attendees Want from Trade Exhibitions, was released February 5. The research found that attendees have personal needs they want met at a trade show along with the needs of their company or organization.
Attendees are interested in both seeing what products are new in their industry, but also making contact with experts in their particular field in order to improve their own skills and insights. The findings found that while 69% of attendees came to a trade show to shop for new products, 66% also came to increase their professional knowledge.
The good news is trade show organizers appear to be doing a pretty good job meeting those seemingly diverse needs. A majority of attendees say they go home satisfied that their primary goals were met, CEIR said.
The report is a follow-on to a study conducted 10 years ago by CEIR and Jeff Tanner, a marketing professor at Baylor University.
“CEIR is thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Tanner, given his extensive expertise in business marketing,” said Nancy Drapeau, CEIR research director. “We will be issuing more reports in the coming months from this initiative.”
What Attendees Want from Trade Exhibitions is available on at no cost to CEIR members at www.ceir.org.
Reach Nancy Drapeau at (972) 687-9242 or ndrapeau@ceir.org
