Trying Year Ends on Upbeat Note

Much like the holiday season in which it culminated, the fourth quarter of 2003 brought comfort and joy to many tradeshow managers, who saw statistical increases across the board for their exhibitions.

According to Tradeshow Week's Quarterly Report of Tradeshow Statistics, professional attendance jumped 7.8 percent over the fourth quarter of 2002. The number of exhibiting companies rose 2.9 percent and the net square footage of shows expanded 1.3 percent over the same period in the previous year. Seventeen shows grew by more than 25 percent by at least one measure of growth; 13 shows grew more than 25 percent in professional attendance.

Based on the shows that provided statistics for both 2002 and 2003, the year overall saw a boost of 3.6 percent in professional attendance, a 0.6-percent increase in number of exhibiting companies and a slight decline of 0.4 percent in net square footage.

Show managers credited their triumphs in the fourth quarter to renewed confidence in air travel and growing interest in the healthy living and aging marketplaces.

"We saw a robust traffic recovery in the last quarter," said Giovanni Bisignani, Intl. Air Transport Assn.'s director general and CEO in a December 2003 analysis.

The Greater New York Dental Meeting was one fourth-quarter show positively affected by this resurgence in travel. According to the Meeting's executive director, Dr. Robert Edwab, this show saw a tremendous increase in dentists visiting from both within the United States and elsewhere, with 1,226 international attendees from 76 countries.

"Getting into the U.S. got much easier," Edwab said.

Only time will tell how international visitors to U.S. tradeshows will fare throughout 2004 with the recently inaugurated US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) program, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says will more efficiently monitor those entering and leaving the country.

Among fourth-quarter shows that experienced strong growth were those involving produce, health food, gardening or spas: in other words, the healthy living and aging sectors.

According to the Connecticut private equity firm North Castle Partners, these markets encompass more than 50,000 companies that generated an estimated $480 billion of revenue in 2003 in North America alone.

A 2-percent annual increase in the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables for the past three to five years is a factor that Howard Friedman, information specialist for the Produce Marketing Assn., said could be responsible for the successful outcome of October's PMA Fresh Summit 2003 Intl. Convention & Expo.

Hanley-Wood Exhibitions' Rick McConnell, the Intl. Pool & Spa Expo's show director, said interest in the therapeutic uses of hot tubs and swimming pools by aging baby boomers was "driving business." This New Orleans show was the quarter's third fastest growing, with a 23-percent hike in net square footage. "We weren't even scratching the surface until this year," McConnell said of the November show.