St Petersburg’s Expoforum has announced details of new infrastructure and facilities that allow the venue to impact all five senses – sight, smell, touch, sound and taste.
The result, management hopes, will be a feeling of quality and customer service that they refer to as the ‘sixth sense’.
The senses concept is being used throughout the venue’s operations and marketing activity as follows:
· Sight – Through a calming look of the venue, peaceful décor, simple clean architecture and significant amounts of natural daylight
· Smell – Using pleasant scents and aromas, appropriate to individual events circulated through the venue’s air filtration system
· Touch – Having tactile materials used throughout the venue’s construction, warm wooden surfaces and comfortable furniture and furnishings
· Sound – Using subtle acoustics that create a positive atmosphere as well as classical music in public areas
· Taste – High quality bespoke, inhouse catering options to suit all palettes.
Part of the strategy includes ‘aroma marketing’ and infusing the air with scents appropriate to events taking place at the venue. This can be centre wide or focused on individual areas. Consequently, on a day when the venue is quiet, visitors can experience Expoforum’s signature scent – edelweiss – chosen to match the Expoforum brand.
Alternatively, event specific scents can be used – such as wood shavings and fresh cut lumber for a recent Timber Association event.
The use of such scents are not designed to be overpowering or invasive but, says Expoforum, to smell comfortable and pleasant – not stale and bland as can so often be the case with large venues.
Maria Tsedeviyn, International Development Director at Expoforum, comments: “As a newly built venue, Expoforum has been constructed using the latest technologies with input and insight from a host of architects, event planners and experts. The result is an environment conducive to exhibitions and congresses that deliver value through learning, networking and a long-term return on event investment. We recognise that the more comfortable a delegate feels, the more positive their experience will be whilst in the venue and, therefore, the more successful the event will be.”
