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Examines the relationship between visitor expectations and exhibitor objectives at trade exhibitions. Drawing on both UK and US research, as well as original research conducted at four UK exhibitions, the author provides evidence that exhibitors and visitors not only have differing expectations of exhibitions and trade fairs, but that these differing expectations are incompatible in many cases. Comparisons are made between frequent exhibitors and infrequent exhibitors, and also between those who commit a large proportion of their marketing budgets to exhibiting and those who do not, in terms of their objectives and expectations for the exhibition; the conclusion is that even those exhibitors who exhibit frequently or commit large sums to the activity take scant account of visitor needs. Concludes with a set of recommendations for practitioners.

Considering that low-level general trust may hinder communication, this study aims to detect the factors that can influence general trust between exhibitors and visitors during business-to-business trade fairs.

Based on a literature review and stakeholders’ behavior analysis, a conceptual model of general trust formation between exhibitors and visitors is proposed.

The preconditions of strangers’ general trust patterns mainly include their early experience regarding trust, institutional trust in the environment and trust propensity. Stakeholders’ treatment, trust transfer, on-site restraints, reward and punishment expansion and on-site personnel arrangement may facilitate the formation of general trust between exhibitors and visitors.

This paper is a conceptual article that requires further investigation to verify the main factors that influence general trust and the impact of general trust on other trust components between exhibitors and visitors.

Organizers, exhibitors and visitors should pay attention to participants’ selection, supervision, self-discipline and personnel management before and during trade fairs. International and small-scale, especially new trade fairs in developed and developing countries, must consider additional measures to improve general trust.

The existing literature has not focused on general trust in the trade fair context. In this paper, research on network and relationship marketing is further deepened in terms of a specific trust type. The interactions between stakeholders before and during fair may promote general trust among participants than in other settings, which partially explains why trade fair (even other two-sided markets) can increase social capital.

The purpose of this paper is to test the applicability of brand personality theory in the perspective of trade show events, and the influence of trade show event personality on exhibitor’s eudaimonic and hedonic happiness and advocacy intentions.

A total of 210 exhibitors (n=210) of three trade exhibitions, organized at Delhi, India participated in the study. A face to face survey method was used to collect the data.

The results of the study provide sustenance for the event personality and exhibitor’s eudaimonic and hedonic happiness model. The event personality factors significantly affected the meaningful and subjective happiness of exhibitor. Happiness was identified as a key influencer for advocacy intentions. Hedonic and eudaimonic facets of happiness had positive effects on exhibitor’s intention to participate, and word of mouth intention.

The current study provides event marketer a tool for measuring event personality. Event personality is vital to build the event equity and to position the event in the market to gain a competitive advantage over the other events. Happiness as a construct is being studied in various social science studies. This study has attempted to establish a relationship among exhibitor happiness, event personality, and advocacy intentions.

This study contributes to the management literature in two ways: first, Eudaimonic and hedonic happiness constructs have never been explored in the brand personality context. Thus, this research adds a new value to the brand personality literature. And second, the brand personality construct is used for the first time in trade show event context that will open a new domain in brand personality, and event research.

Researchers studying festivals have overlooked exhibitors as a population within tourism research. Instead, researchers focus primarily on examining festival visitors' economic impacts and motivations for attending. Festival exhibitors have been overlooked because they are considered a part of the overall festival product. The purpose of this paper is to propose a research agenda for festival exhibitors by analyzing embedded relationships created from their festival participation.

A literature review was conducted to explore why exhibitors have not been studied in festival research. A search of publications in other relevant fields was also conducted in order to review how exhibitors have been studied. An analytical framework was developed to analyze embedded relationships within festival exhibitors.

The analytical framework developed revealed that the exhibitor relationship with the festival can be divided into three dimensions: the festival, the market place and the business. In total, nine major lines of research topics were suggested to understand the relationships uncovered within festival exhibitors.

The academic researcher is introduced to the potential research opportunities in examining festival exhibitors and is pointed in the direction of relevant research questions and disciplines that would equip them with the practical tools of investigation.

This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge in the study of events and festivals because festival exhibitors are not studied. By alerting the reader to the applicability and value of exhibitors to understanding festivals, this paper aims to encourage scholars to empirically investigate exhibitors. This will thereby lead to a more diverse literature on festivals and will provide a further understanding of the contribution festivals make to local and regional economies.

This paper seeks to examine the differences at international trade shows between exhibitors who participate in joint booths and those who participate in individual booths. The structure, strategy and trade show performance of exhibitors at joint booths and those at individual booths are analysed.

The paper presents an empirical study of 208 exhibitors at an international food and beverage show, focusing on the differences in structure, strategy and performance between individual exhibitors and exhibitors at joint booths. The differences are identified and discussed.

Individual exhibitors place more personnel and products at their booths and they allocate more resources, top management commitment and planning. However, exhibitors at joint booths have more formalised planning and objective setting. The performances of five groups of trade show activities were assessed. Individual exhibitors perform significantly better on image‐building activities at the show. There are no differences with regard to firm characteristics between the two participation modes.

The study is limited by the fact that the sampling frame is made up of exhibitors at a single international food and beverage show, and may therefore be more representative of that kind of show. Despite the limitations encountered, the findings have important implications for exhibitors at international trade shows and export marketing programmes as well as other marketing programmes offering services to international trade show exhibitors.

A broad range of joint booths and strategy variables is investigated. Also, a more comprehensive and theoretical grounded performance measure is adopted compared with previous research.

This paper aims to determine the influence of travel fair selection factors on exhibitor intention to attend, in conjunction with the role of political risk within that relationship.

Following the basic premises of image repair theory, this quantitative study examines the perceptions of 205 exhibitors – both domestic and international – at Belgrade Travel Fair.

Two variables – travel fair customer acquisition and retention orientation and market orientation – were found to influence travel fair intention in a statistically significant manner, while multi-group structural equation modeling indicates a positive statistically significant correlation between travel fair customer acquisition and retention and travel fair market orientation and travel fair intention for exhibitors that place higher importance on political risk in the region.

The limitations of the research are its regional focus and its small sample size.

Travel fair organizers should consider market orientation and customer acquisition and retention orientation as important antecedents of travel fair intention. Exhibitor perception of political risk enhances image repair efforts.

The study focuses on the perception of travel fair exhibitors when attending a travel fair in a region which is continually exposed to political risk. Thus, travel fairs can act as image repair instruments for companies affected by political risk in a region, as they have the capacity to present a positive image to a specific audience.

The study enhances the existing work related to image repair theory by observing how travel fairs can be used as image repair instruments. The originality of the study lies in its provision of further understanding of the reasons for exhibitor attendance at travel fairs and, more specifically, the role of political risk in this context. The study’s findings extend the applicability of the image repair theory in the context of the behavioral nature of travel fair attendance.

Applying stakeholder theory in the trade show industry, this paper aims to examine the effects of the key stakeholders’ perceptions on trade show exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention.

This study used a 46-item measurement scale on exhibitors’ satisfaction to predict positive behavioral intention. Three dimensions were proposed to account for three key stakeholders in the trade show industry: satisfaction with self-performance, satisfaction with organizers and satisfaction with visitors. Data were collected from 594 exhibitors at three trade shows.

This study found that satisfaction with self-performance, satisfaction with organizers and satisfaction with visitors are significantly and positively related to exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention. All three dimensions in combination explained approximately two-thirds of the variance in exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention.

This study introduced a new way of predicting exhibitor’s positive behavioral intention. Satisfaction with organizers was found to be the dominant predictor of exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention, which challenges the notion that exhibitors attend trade shows only for sales activities.

Trade show organizers and exhibitors could use the three determinants as a diagnostic tool for future improvement and benchmark their performances across different time periods and/or against their competitors.

Although the three key stakeholder types have been studied previously, the factors that theoretically lead to exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention have not been simultaneously addressed. For the first time, the model proposed in this study showcased the importance of considering all three key stakeholders when studying exhibitors’ positive behavioral intention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the network and exhibitor’s performance. The entrepreneurial orientation is seen as a highly competitive factor for the company, which can foster its trade fair business.

A survey-based quantitative approach was adopted, including a questionnaire (n = 362) applied to companies participating in trade fairs. To arrive at results, the study developed structural equations modeling techniques, using SPSS 24 and AMOS 20 software.

The study demonstrates positive impacts of entrepreneurial orientation on network capability and consequent exhibitor’s non-sales performance and exhibitor’s sales performance. A conceptual model is presented.

The study was carried out mainly on Portuguese companies, restricting its generalization. In addition, the exhibitor’s performance was measured based on the exhibitors’ level of satisfaction and not on real sales results.

The study offers a process which the results highlight such as innovativeness, proactivity, risk-taking, competitiveness and autonomy (dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation) as a mix of important ingredients for the exhibitor’s networking. The networking promotes intangible results (non-sales performance) that can generate sales (sales performance).

The study is the first research to apply entrepreneurial orientation in the trade fair context and it also presents a relationship between non-sales performance and sales performance.

International trade shows have become a significant promotional tool for exporters. However, little academic research has been used to examine the role of trade shows within marketing. Reviews the extant literature and develops a new framework of trade show participation modes (i.e. exhibitors and visitors) and motives (i.e. selling and buying). Notes that the two perspectives of buying exhibitors and selling visitors have not been discussed in the literature. Applies the framework to an empirical study of Norwegian seafood exporters participating at international trade shows. Finds significant differences in firm characteristics, participation motives and effectiveness between different participation modes and motives. Develops managerial implications and directions for future research.

A growing body of literature highlights the relationship between the marketing strategies for trade shows and performance. However, the effect of exhibitor experience on the international trade show processes has not been addressed in the literature. This chapter fills the gap by examining the moderating role of exhibitors’ trust, commitment, and satisfaction at World Travel Mart London 2017. The purposes are to identify the concepts of experiential marketing, to develop a conceptual framework, and to propose a new perspective on exhibitors’ performance at such events. Using survey data, structural equation modeling was applied to test the theoretical links and assess the value of competing explanations.