At the MCM, conducting timely and practically relevant research is of utmost importance. As part of her dissertation under the supervision of Professor Manfred Krafft, Victoria Kramer collaborated with Koelnmesse, one of the ten largest trade show exhibition centers worldwide, to investigate what the future of trade shows will look like and how exhibitors and visitors of trade shows perceive the digital and hybrid formats that were developed and tested during the pandemic. Furthermore, the study investigated how trade show suppliers can foster the relationship with their customers to improve both exhibitors’ and visitors’ trade show experiences. In their latest press release, Koelnmesse has now published the most important results and highlights the fruitful collaboration with the IfM.

The results show that customers consider parallel physical and digital events to be very complex. Instead, trade show exhibitors and visitors clearly emphasize the benefits of the physical format. Based on the experience with digital formats tested in recent years, an opportunity for industry-specific 365-day platforms emerges, which Koelnmesse will take up in future product developments. In addition, Victoria Kramer and Professor Krafft show that in order to achieve beneficial trade show outcome, a close collaboration between customers and suppliers needs to occur.

If you are interested in more details, you can find the press release here.