Exhibition organisers and venue operators state that service providers have a relatively high impact on overall event success. This is a core finding from the first edition of the new Industry Partners Benchmark Survey, released by UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry.
Developed by the UFI Industry Partners Working Group, the new survey benchmarks and assesses the relationships between industry partners/suppliers and exhibition organisers/venues. It also identifies areas for improvement with regard to collaboration.
More than 200 companies contributed to the project, the majority from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
“We believe this is the first survey of its kind in our industry to focus on the value that organisers place on their suppliers,” says Ravinder Sethi, chair of UFI;’s Industry Partners Working Group, who adds that the survey provides key insights into the true nature of the relationships between organisers and the companies that support their events.
UFI says the survey also demonstrates that industry partners are regarded as an essential and valuable component of the exhibition industry, with overall satisfaction levels with regard to service delivery being relatively high. The results indicate that some of the less-utilised services may have a stronger impact on the outcome of an event than those more heavily relied upon, while the duration of co-operation between industry partners and their customers has a strong positive correlation to satisfaction levels.
The survey also reveals a demand for more innovation from industry partners and indicates that an increase in data sharing between industry partners and their customers could bring additional value. “The collaboration between organisers, venues and service partners is more important than ever, now that we are dealing with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic,” says UFI President Anbu Varathan.
The Industry Partners Benchmark Survey was conducted at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and UFI says it will be run on a regular basis to reflect the ongoing challenges and impact on the exhibition industry.
The Industry Partners Benchmark Survey can be downloaded from the UFI website at https://www.ufi.org/research/
