The article is meant to create an idea about the opportunities of participating at a travel fair by acknowledging about the most important facts regarding preparation, participation and evaluation. Knowing the reasons of participating both for visitors and participants and getting information about the economic costs that arise at a travel fair will raise the fog from the question of which show to attend and what are the professional advantages if there are any.travel fair, efficiency, advantages, reasons

SZAVO SEBASTIAN MIHAI

English

Research Papers in Economics

  1025 
ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND PROFESSIONAL ADVANTAGE OF 
PARTICIPATING AT TRAVEL FAIRS  
Szavo Sebastian Mihai 
University of Oradea  
Faculty of Economic Sciences 
 
The article is meant to create an idea about the opportunities of participating at a travel fair by 
acknowledging  about  the  most  important  facts  regarding  preparation,  participation  and 
evaluation. Knowing the reasons of participating both for visitors and participants and getting 
information  about  the  economic  costs  that  arise  at  a  travel  fair  will  raise the  fog  from  the 
question of which show to attend and what are the professional advantages if there are any. 
 
Keywords: travel fair, efficiency, advantages, reasons  
Jel code: A1 
 
 
What are travel fairs? 
Travel fair represents a wonderful opportunity to meet travel professionals in a single place. This 
kind of events reunites under the same roof not only the promoters of inbound, outbound, but 
those of the internal tourism, too. 
Travel fairs offer unlimited opportunities to promote and sale the company’s special destination 
or special product. 
Fairs are able to stimulate travel, tourism, hospitality both inside and outside the country. It 
represents a place where travel professionals and potential customers meet face – to - face and 
develop a potentially advantageous relation. 
Travel fairs are valuable occasions both for already active companies and for those who’s activity 
are about to begin. These companies can later remember what they’we learned from the show and 
they  can network  with  potential  business  partners,  they  can  study  the  sales  strategies  of the 
participants. For these reasons and not only, it should be paid maximum attention in participating 
at travel fairs as a visitor and as an exhibitor as well.  
Good preparation for the travel fair will eliminate the obvious stress which comes few days 
before the show. 
 
Advantage of promotion at a travel fair 
Before they begin, during the shows and after they shows there is a concentrated promotion 
campaign to ensure and to inform an interested public. The means are: 
 - invitation campaigns by email and post for potential guests from different domains: transport, 
tourism, hospitality industry, aviation industry, government and private institutes, travel industry 
related companies  
 - publicity in main local newspapers, publicity in the most important magazines, TV publicity, 
Internet publicity, radio publicity etc.  
 - briefings from the travel show in travel related magazines  
 - the event is strategically programmed it should take place before the beginning of the season. 
Promotion at the show is realized with the help of a media company which through its travel fair 
experience can ensure an adequate image of the exhibitor. 
 
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Who is participating? 
Visitator’s profile 
- Visitors from the travel industry 
- Business people visitors 
- Visitors - potential holiday makers, travelers 
-  Visitors  with  a  role  in  decision  making  (business,  local  authorities,  institutions  of  the 
government) 
- Potential investors in the hotel, travel and entertainment industries 
- Travel agents 
- Tour operators 
- Visitors without any relation to the industry 
Exhibitor’ profile 
- Government institutes and travel industry organizations 
- Tour operators(inbound and outbound industry) 
- Travel offices 
- Tourism associations 
- Professionals in relation with the travel industry: sport equipments makers, means of transport 
makers(buses, minibuses, camping cars) etc.  
- Producers and sellers of hotel management and catering relating goods 
- Publishing houses of travel related literature(books, maps etc.)  
- Educational institutes 
Participating at a travel fair is above all an investment for both exhibitor and visitor as well. They 
must take a decision about participation or not at a certain travel fair. Above the things that might 
have to be considered before taking any decision are: the name of the travel fair, location, date, 
who is the organizer, type of the show, relative number of exhibitors, relative number of visitors, 
the  cost  of  rental  of  the  booth  and  the  necessary  equipment,  cost  related  to  the  travel, 
accommodation,  meals,  cost  of  the  promotional  materials  and  their  transport(brochures, 
catalogues etc). 
Before taking a final decision exhibitors try to determine the necessary budget. In order to be 
capable  to  realize  that  it  must  consider  creating  a  handout  with  the  approximate  number  of 
employees who will represent the company at the show and the estimated costs that will arise.  
Although travel shows are a very good occasion to make business, limits must be considered, 
especially financial limits, because the investment will not necessarily determine an immediate 
raise of sales. In general, expenses with travel, accommodation will highly depend on the show’s 
location, namely the distance from the company’s residence. 
 
Reasons for participating 
Of course, here are certainly hundreds of reasons for participating at the travel fair. For an active 
travel business, participation means the opportunity to meet hundreds or maybe thousands of 
potential customers who visit its booth. One of nowadays sale strategies is exhibiting at travel 
fair, where customers come to companies and vice versa. Speaking about difficult times(after the 
Gulf war, 9. 11 events, actual economic crises) travel companies must reconsider all previously 
tested sale strategies and implement new ones. 
Travel fair are perfect exhibition spaces to introduce new travel products or destinations, for 
establishing new contacts or selling or buying products or services, all these in the same spot with 
maximum efficiency. In order to develop customers portofolio and for a better visual presence 
participation is vital both for older comapnies and new comers as well.  
 
Main reasons for an exhibitor:  
- Create awareness of products/services with potential buyers  
- Evaluate the competitors   1027 
- Research for demand.  
- Generating sales.  
- Enhancing the image of the company 
- Reach of a specific targeted public  
- Establishing a strong market presence 
- Distribution of brochures, catalogues, promotion objects 
- Enhancing marketing politics.  
- Meeting face to face the customers, competitors and distributors  
- Evaluation of potential or new competitors/customers.  
- Demonstrating products in ways not possible using other marketing channels 
- Recruiting new distributors  
- Education and information for targeted customers.  
 
The importance of a professional booth 
The exhibition booth must be professionally designed. It must be able to attract the audience’s 
attention by using different themes(tour operators who promote a certain destination use colors 
and objects to remind the culture of the destination country). 
Travel  fairs  are  very  important  for  small  companies  as  well  because  exhibition  are  is  not 
expensive and booth are easy to design very attractively even with the small amount of money. 
This way smaller company can look like a much bigger business giving a kind of an advantage.  
Travel shows are a very powerful marketing atmosphere because they take place in a single 
location, they have limited time(usually 2-3 days) and unite hundreds of exhibitors and potential 
customers. It is very common for an exhibitor that during a show he will meet many of his 
suppliers, customers and dealers. 
 
But, which show is worth to attend? 
A research conducted by the National Fair Exhibitors Association in America revealed the top 15 
criteria used by exporters in selecting which fairs to attend were: 
 
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The decision to participate or not at a certain show belongs to each company’s head and the result 
itself reveals the importance of that specific show for the business. Sometimes trade simulations 
are made to evaluate if employees are ready enough. This study reveals the importance given to 
people with decision power, followed by the proportion of targeted customers from the number 
of visitors. Facts like easy registration, security are on the end of the top. 
 
Budgeting for the show 
Budgeting for an exhibitor is not only about the cost or space and booth rental. Below there is an 
estimation in euro for the 3 fazes of a travel show(before, during and after) for a travel agency 
who finally have not attended a local travel fair organized on Oradea, in Selgros mall parking in 
2009. 
 
 
 
Measuring the economic efficiency 
 
To determine the economic efficiency indicators can be used: 
- Total number of visitors(e.g. 10.000) 
- Number of visitors who attended company booth(e.g. 2.000) 
- Percentage of visitors who attended company booth from total number of visitors (2.000 x 
10.000/100) 
- Promotion level – number of catalogues/brochures distributed(e.g. 1.000) 
- Number of new contacts established during the show(e.g. 50) 
- Number of new requests during and after the show(e.g. 200) 
- Number of effectively realized booking(e.g. 100)   1029 
If we want to appreciate the economic efficiency we must create a report containing all the fact 
we encountered. First and foremost the objectives must be considered if they were achieved or 
not, the results can be compared to previous shows or previous years.  
 
Conclusion 
Among  the  advantages  of  participation  at  a  travel  fair  are  the  new  experiences  we  get, 
enhancement of customer relation abilities dealing with a large number of potential customer in a 
very short time, the enhancement of company and personal image. 
 
Bibliography 
￿5  Abraham Pizam - Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 29, Nr. 1, 3-8 (1990) 
￿5  Davidson, Rob – Tourism in Europe, Techniplus, Paris (1992) 
￿5  Le Journal d’Information d’Atout France – Nr.13, (2009) 
￿5  Marnik G. Dekimpe, Pierre Frarqois, Srinath Gopalakrishna, Gary L. Lilien, 
Christophe Van den Bulte - Generalizing About Fair Effectiveness: A Cross-National 
Comparison, Institute for the Study of Business Markets 
￿5  The Pennsylvania State University 
 
 
   

ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND PROFESSIONAL ADVANTAGE OF PARTICIPATING AT TRAVEL FAIRS

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ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND PROFESSIONAL ADVANTAGE OF PARTICIPATING AT TRAVEL FAIRS

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