UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry has signed a three-year partnership deal with London based insight specialists, Explori.
Since early 2016 Explori has worked in partnership with UFI to produce exclusive content and insight for members on the performance of exhibitions globally and regionally. The new agreement prolongs this successful collaboration until and including the year 2020.
In 2016, the two organisations jointly launched the Global Visitor Insights study; a unique report which brings together insight on the customer experience from over 900 tradeshows around the world.
The first edition delivered key findings related to the visitor’s behaviour, the levels of loyalty and advocacy of the industry, their needs and, the extent to which these needs are being met by the industry. UFI members have used the insight to understand the wider context for the performance of their own event portfolios.
Key trends identified to-date include:
– Exhibitions in the more developed exhibition markets tend to achieve higher satisfaction levels than those in less matured markets. Despite this, events in less matured markets benefit from a “return bonus” effect, with higher levels of loyalty than might be predicted by their ability to satisfy their visitors.
– There is also an inherent difference between what satisfied and dissatisfied visitors prioritise when providing feedback on events. Dissatisfied visitors tend not to focus on so called “hygiene factors” such as venue layout, signage or catering, but highlight far more fundamental problems as the cause of their lack of satisfaction.
Kai Hattendorf, UFI Managing Director and CEO, says: “It is one of UFI’s key missions to provide vital data on industry developments to our members, the leading organisers and venue operators around the world. To provide global insights and comparism, you need both global data and high quality analytics. Together with the Explori leadership and team we will continue to pool our resources to produce timely insights tailored to help our industry to strengthen its unique position in the marketing mix of companies. I am very excited about this.”
Explori CEO Mark Brewster added: “We are beginning to see the importance of a customer-centric approach imbed in the consciousness of the industry, along with an appreciation of the competitive edge this brings. The team at Explori feel privileged to continue to work with UFI to lead the movement towards an industry-wide approach to understanding the experience of our customers for the benefit of the industry as a whole. The platform UFI have afforded us to reach industry leaders in every major exhibition market has been invaluable in re-framing the discussion around the customer and creating a unique industry resource.”
Explori’s research platform is designed to support event organisers gather meaningful customer insight across multiple languages and territories. Head-quartered in London, Explori has rapidly grown to provide scalable research solutions to event organisers worldwide. With a global client base including ITE, Clarion, Reed Exhibitions, Comexposium, Informa and Messe Frankfurt regularly contributing to their global benchmarks, Explori now holds the biggest set of exhibition performance insight in the world.
More information about the UFI & Explori Global Insights can be found on the UFI website: (www.ufi.org/research). While a management summary is openly available, the full report is available to UFI members only
