The evolution of trade show systems: lessons from Europe

International trade shows have played a central role for the development of local economies in Europe, in the last fifty years. As collective marketing instruments, European events were able to support the visibility of many local clusters and national manufacturing industries, enabling at the same time local firms to establish international pipelines and become market-oriented. In Europe, trade shows have been important drivers of business tourism, generating economic impact on the hosting cities because of visitors’ and exhibitors’ expenses in the local area. These two kinds of benefit (promotion of local clusters/national industries and local economic impacts) have legitimized two different trade shows models: the export shows (local/national supply shows), with exhibitors mainly represented by local producers and visitors-buyers mainly coming from abroad; and the import shows (those for the local/national demand), with exhibitors-producers mainly coming from abroad and visitors-buyers mainly representing the local markets. The two models were promoted by different actors with specific interests: industrial associations, with protectionist attitudes in the former case; local governments, interested in an exhibitor base (and local economic impact) as large as possible, in the latter. We observed that the resulting system of different competing events, supported by actors with different motivation, resulted in many trade show wars and a general evolutionary trend. First, there were wars between different local industrial clusters within the same country, which sometimes originated a situation of fragmentation, with many smaller local supply shows not being able to join forces and create a strong export trade show representing the entire national industry, resulting in reduced visibility for all exhibitors involved. Second, there were wars between supply shows and demand shows, which highlighted how well orchestrated collective marketing can sometimes enable smaller trade shows to overcome the visibility of larger ones. Finally, we observed a general long-term trend of weakening of export-oriented trade shows. Today, producers tend to follow markets by exhibiting at local demand trade shows, reducing at the same time their investments at local/national export events. This in turn provides reduced incentives to buyers from overseas to visit trade shows located in other continents. It might be naïve to assume that history might repeat itself in Asia. Yet, we see increasing competition between trade show venues and organizers in Asia. There are wars between trade shows located in different countries, to become the “hub” – or the most important and international event in the underlying industry. There are also trade show wars inside the same country. In our perception, European exhibitors are confused by this situation and when having to choose between two competing events in the same country, they might privilege a third event located elsewhere