Study: The future of trade fairs is… physical!

What does the future of the trade fair look like? What are the goals of exhibitors who take part in a trade fair? And how can the trade fair teams best support their exhibitors in optimizing their trade fair experience? Koelnmesse addressed these and other questions about the future of trade fairs in a science project in cooperation with the University of Münster. The results show that exhibitors continue to want the physical trade fair format.

Opportunity for 365 day platforms

“The current crises have presented the trade fair business model with enormous challenges. We are asked to constantly prove the clout of the trade fair format in practice with creative solutions,” says Cologne trade fair boss Gerald Böse. As part of the dissertation by Victoria Kramer, doctoral student at the Institute for Marketing under the supervision of Professor Dr. Manfred Krafft, became the
Acceptance of the digital trade fair formats developed during the pandemic was examined.

At the same time, the possibilities for the joint development of new formats in the exchange between trade fair companies and exhibitors were explored. The evaluation of extensive surveys shows that companies consider physical and digital events taking place in parallel to be very complex. The digital formats tested in recent years are instead seen as an opportunity for 365-day platforms. The following applies: Both the physical events and the time-independent digital offers require a clear industry profile.

This post originally appeared on werbewoche.ch – https://www.werbewoche.ch/de/marketing/marktforschung/2023-01-30/studie-die-zukunft-der-messe-ist-physisch/