Industry Analysis
The importance and range of international convention, exhibition and meeting industry have increased significantly during the last several decades due to the increasing force of globalisation, technological advancement, increasing role of internet and other reasons. These factors had immense positive impact on the industry in a way that planning and executing conferences, exhibitions and meetings have become significantly easier through getting easy access to relevant knowledge via internet, communicating to various stakeholders efficiently through e-mail and other modern means of communication, as well as using various visual and audio aids enabled by modern technology that increase the efficiency of such occasions. This article is a critical analysis of international convention, exhibition and meeting industry and addresses a range of related issues. The industry is analysed in general while the global focus is held when concentrating on the issues the industry is facing. The article starts with identifying size, value and range of the industry followed by the discussion of the key event factors from different perspectives. Then key issues in internal and external stakeholder management are discussed followed by the analysis of the specific skills required in the management in this industry. Moreover assessment is provided about the role of the destination marketing in conference, exhibition and meeting industry. Conclusion constitutes the summery of the report highlighting important points discussed in the report. Nature and Specifications of International Convention, Exhibition and Meeting Industry There are different variations of classifications of events offered by many authors who had academic or practical credentials to contribute to the topic. One of the most popular versions is the one offered by Pike (2008), who classifies events into six categories which are meetings, incentive travel, convention, exhibition, trade show and public show. Each of them differ from the rest of the group according to their…
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Industry Analysis
International convention, exhibition and meeting industry has increased in size and importance recently due to several reasons. Firstly, globalisation has decreased the importance of the traditional meaning of borders between countries and as a result today businesses and people move to other countries to attend or to organise various types of special events. Secondly, intensive technological advancements of the last several decades have contributed to the number of special events through offering new business ideas that needed to be discussed and presented to public. Thirdly, the increasing role of internet in many aspects of human and organisational life has assisted information about special events to circulate more widely, and accordingly positively contributed to the number of attendance to special events. It has been stated that “a global meeting, convention, or exhibition forms a temporal community. This temporary society has all the challenges and opportunities of more permanent societies” (Krugman and Wright, 2007, p.2). Therefore, the topic needs to be approached with the due importance and various aspects of the issue needs to be analysed in order to be able eliminate these challenges. This article critically analyses the current state of special events industry in a global perspective focusing on international, conventions, exhibitions and meetings. The article explores the issues of the size, nature and range of international convention, exhibition, and meeting industry, analyses the factors of success of special events, and describes the main skills that are required in conference, exhibition and meeting industry. The article also includes the assessment of the importance of destination marketing in conference, exhibition and meeting industry. Size, Value, Nature and Range of International Convention, Exhibition and Meeting Industry The scope of the meetings and events industry in a global level is difficult to quantify due to the fact that there is no a single source…
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Industry Analysis
The definition of food tourism is straightforward and there is no dramatic contrast among various definitions offered by various authors. A typical definition of food tourism would is like a “visitiation to primary and secondary food producers, food festivals, restaurants and specific locations for which food tasting and/or experiencing the attributes of specialist food production regions are the primary motivating factors for travel” (Buhalis and Costa, 2006, p.137). To make it more simple, it can be stated that food tourism is travelling to other destinations in order to consume their food. First of all, there is a consensus among the vast majority of authors the works of whom have been studied as a part of literature review that the topic of food tourism is not new. At the same time, “yet it is such an integral part of the experience that it is only in recent years that it has become a subject of study on its own right” (Hall and Sharples, 2003, p.1). Gretzel et al (2010) link this recent rise of popularity of food tourism to technological advancement in general, and the increasing role of internet in particular, by stating that once it became easier for people to get information of various types from internet including culinary and cuisine of other nations, more and more people started to travel to other countries for the sake of trying their food. Moreover, some authors have offered explanations about the growth of food tourism by stating the importance of the tourism destination. Specifically, it has been stated that “as the motivation to experience food and while travelling growth, destinations with appropriate levels of food and wine resources are able to develop increasingly sophisticated food and wine experiences, which may lead to the emergence of gourmet tourism” (Chen, 2009, p.165) Among a…
Symbol has been defined by Smith (2009) as a material object, written sign or something invisible that is used to represent something else. “The idea of ‘binding a matter with the matter’s image” is one that speaks to a more visceral aspect of symbolism and suggests a dimension of relational meaning for symbols that can play no comparable role in our understanding of a simple phonetic latter in the modern sense” (Scranton, 2010, p.47). According to Brodskaya (2007) in literature symbolism can be in forms of damnation, salvation, and reincarnation. Currently symbols are used for commercials purposes as well by many companies through associating their brands with a particular symbol or logo. Consumption can be interpreted as buying, using and interpretation of things (Aldridge, 2003) and in this sense it is a different term from a traditional economic definition of consumption. “Consumption involves consuming ideas, images on television and in advertisements” (Bocock, 1993, p.33). There are debates about the role and scope of the notion of consumption, but generally, many researchers agree on the current meaning of consumption in a way that modern identities are structured around the experience of consumption (Dunn, 1998). An interesting point relating to the issue of consumption is that it is very difficult for people to distinguish their ‘true’ and ‘false’ needs. True needs are air, water, food, sleep, and sex, without which it is impossible to live and people have to ‘consume’ them regularly, whereas ‘false’ needs are the ones created by marketing professionals, which makes people want to ‘consume’ their products or services. For instance, thirst for Coca Cola is a ‘false’ consumption need created by marketers. This is possible because people tend to express their desire through their consumption patterns. For example, if an individual desires to become a senior level executive,…
Introduction Tourism has been one of the biggest and the most profitable industries in 20th century and this industry is moving towards the new level in 21st century with new variations and services included. Ecotourism is one of the variations of tourism that has been attracted mixed opinions from business academics and practitioners alike. Ecotourism can be defined as “travel to enjoy the world’s amazing diversity of natural life and human culture without causing damage to either” (Tickell, 1994, p.ix) On one hand, there are authors who argue that ecotourism is beneficial to tourists and local society in many levels pointing to learning opportunity for tourists and economic benefits to ecotourism destinations along with a range of other perceived benefits. On the other hand, there are others who point to the occasions were people were misplaced, local nature damaged, as well as socio-economic inequalities as the negative effects of ecotourism. Wearing and Neal (2009, p.6) mention two main facets of inequality as travelling to unspoilt natural environments and experiencing natural environment as the purpose of the travel. Emerging around 1980’s, ecotourism is believed to be related to nature-based, environmental education and sustainable development. However, there are some people who are highly sceptical about the benefits of ecotourism, and claim that it produces socio-economic inequalities. The Benefits of Ecotourism Development Ecotourism offers range positive impacts for tourists, host destinations, and the science and environment in general. The impact of ecotourism on the designated areas where ecotourism has been promoted is not only a marginal activity to finance the protection of the environment, but is also a major industry of the national economy. Tuohino and Hynonen (1991) mention the fact that due to rapid growth of the ecotourism in areas like Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nepal, the local communities are also benefiting…
Efficient special events are those that leave long lasting positive memories in audience and achieve their objectives as an event for organizers and other stakeholders. The actual event may last only few hours, but in order to organize them sometimes preparations need to be undertaken starting from months, or even years in advance, considerable amount of funds, and effort from many people are required to ensure the efficiency of the event. And the success of events largely depends on how competently they were managed. Special events have some fascinating elements incorporated in them that you can remember them during the whole remaining period of your life. Many of us can remember witnessing such an event, be it a festival, sport competition, celebration of a national holiday, or other, that we remember them with warm feelings and nostalgia, and look forward to experience it again. “The British Conference Market Trends Survey 2001 estimates that conferences and meetings are worth £7.3 billion annually. Exhibitions and trade fairs are calculated to be worth £2.04 billion annually, excluding the value of business transacted on them. This means that exhibitions are the fifth largest market medium, attracting 11 per cent of media expenditure in the UK (British Tourist Authority, 2006)” (Raj et al, 2008, p.4) For an event to be memorable and entertaining for the audience and to achieve its objectives, it has to be efficiently managed by competent managers. Event management differs in many aspects from managing a business unit in many other industries in a way that it requires from the manager a high degree of creativity, preparedness to deal with many unforeseen circumstances, and a high level of enthusiasm. Definitions There are many authors who have contributed to the subject of special events and there are many definitions proposed by…
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Industry Analysis
Today the fast food industry is booming in many countries of the world and in the UK due to a range of reasons including their relative cheaper price, convenience of purchasing and consuming, and lack of time of people for “proper” dining. Although fast food does provide value for consumers in terms of convenience, price, and in some cases taste, these values cannot compensate the damage to the health of consumers fast food does. The fast food culture is well embraced by the population in UK. Brown (2005, p.3) informs that fast food industry in UK has an annual turnover of £7.2 billion, earned by serving 1.5 billion meals a year in 20000 outlets, employing nearly 200000 staff. The UK fast food market is reported to be “double the size of Germany, and three times the size of the French Market” (Humphries, 2010). According to Wikipedia (online, 2010), UK was the country with the largest number of fast food restaurants per person worldwide with Australia in second, and the United States in third places in 2008, and 25 per cent of all fast food restaurants were situated in England alone. A study in the same year found that “45% of people in UK were more likely to agree that they liked the taste of fast food to give it up” (Fastfoodnation-online, 2010). Moreover, recent financial crisis has fuelled 8 per cent growth in fast food industry in UK (Kuhn, 2009). Fast food menu in UK mainly includes burgers, pizza, chicken, sandwiches, fish and chips, curry, Chinese takeaways and others. Main players in UK fast food industry are McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Pizza Express, KFC, Chicken Cottage, Subway, Starbucks Coffee, Costa, Pret A Manger, EAT, Coffee Republic, Mr Cod and others. The Food and Drink Innovation Network (online, 2010) 95…
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Industry Analysis