Crowd Connected, a provider of visitor tracking technology to the events industry, recently conducted research that found that the global exhibition industry is pretty inefficient when it comes to wayfinding capabilities at venues. The research suggests that for every 100 valuable visitor-exhibitor conversations that take place at exhibitions, another 65 fail to take place because of inefficiencies.
Poor navigation is a significant cause of this value loss, where research indicates that the value of a typical exhibition could be 20% higher if visitors had no problem finding the stands that they wanted to see. The research points towards the loss in value for visitors, who often leave exhibitions unaware of the presence of an exhibitor, with whom they could have had a valuable conversation.
Crowd Connected have recommended five solutions to improve on these inefficiencies:
- Focus on visitor-exhibitor conversations as value creation moments that should be maximised. Include questions about the number of conversations that took place, and potential ones that didn’t take place, in post-event surveys.
- Implement digital navigation and wayfinding so visitors find every exhibitor they look for and waste less time getting lost.
- Use smartphone apps to deliver recommendations that aid the discovery of interesting stands or sessions.
- Add features to mobile apps like schedule planning, favourite stands, ‘where next’ features, and notifications to leave now to get to your meeting or content on time.
- Measure how effectively exhibitors convert passing footfall into engaged visitors. If they’re busy, or invisible, they’re part of the problem and need to be coached.
