The Voice of the Exhibition Industry Market Outlook – Wave 2

The impact

Visitors and buyers not being willing (or allowed) to travel and cash flow constraints remain the top 2 issues

75% of exhibition industry professionals consider visitors and buyers not being willing or able to travel to be the most critical issues they had to deal with because of the shift in time of the event.

This goes hand in hand with a very critical cash flow situation, which resulted in painful decisions for all organisers.

Overlapping with calendars of other events and the availability of venues to re-schedule the event is affecting primarily smaller event organisers (those organizing less than 5 events).

Event organisers are not standing still and waiting for the Covid-19 pandemic to be over

There is a strong increase in terms of initiatives implemented by event organisers during this pandemic.

Workshops and webinars hosted online have now been organised by more than 75% of them (it was 65% in July 2020). Virtual events became a reality, with now almost 7 every 10 respondents who presented it already or are about to.

On the adoption of these solutions, the size of the organiser is a key element, with larger companies offering it more than smaller counterparts.

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The “HAPPINESS INDEX”

How engaging are exhibition organisers towards their employees?

For the first time we measure how much employees are satisfied about working for an exhibition organiser and how engaged they are with the companies.

Sitting at the bottom of the ranking are the education opportunities offered by the company, particularly when it comes to venues and smaller businesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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About the future…

We are still in the middle of the storm

Expectations about the future are not great as yet. These are actually worse than they were in July 2020.

Conclusion

• The Exhibition Industry Market Outlook offers a unique understanding of the pressures being felt throughout our industry at a global level.
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on exhibitions is manifest, not only to organizers, but also to the market.
• The aim of this research is to share and understand the industry leaders' point of view, their expectations for the future, and how they are reacting to these new challenges.
• We are grateful to everyone who took part in the survey and we thank them for their time and for sharing their opinion.