How to understand the coordinated development of the exhibition industry and cities

1. Core professional system of the convention and exhibition industry

The so-called core professional system is to return to the concept of convention and exhibition itself and evaluate the development of the urban convention and exhibition industry from the professional composition of the convention and exhibition industry. This system It can be said that it is the most important component of the development of the urban exhibition industry and the most unique manifestation of the strength of each city's exhibition industry. The three major elements can be summarized as:

(1) The number and scale of brand exhibitions.

For a city, traveling exhibitions only bring temporary prosperity, while brand exhibitions are a long-lasting source of vitality. This is mainly due to the basic characteristics of brand exhibitions: first, high visibility. It has high visibility and credibility in a certain area and is recognized by the industry and consumers. Second, it is highly demonstrative. Brand exhibitions are forward-looking and expressive for production and consumption, can basically display information about a certain industry, and can represent the development direction of the industry. The third is strong aggregation. The exhibition can attract the most powerful and influential manufacturers and marketers in the industry to participate, and has professional appeal. Fourth, the continuity is strong. A brand exhibition should be a long-term, continuous display. If an exhibition is only held once, or once in a while, it is usually difficult to make a profit. It must be held one session after another to create a brand in order to be profitable.

Once the urban convention and exhibition industry has a certain number of brand exhibitions, it will undoubtedly ensure a solid foundation for the development of the local convention and exhibition industry, which will not only drive the local related industrial economy, but also provide the possibility for the extension and improvement of other similar exhibitions. . Therefore, when evaluating a city's convention and exhibition industry, the number and scale of its brand exhibitions must be the primary consideration. It is a benchmark that best reflects the strength and development potential of the city's convention and exhibition industry.

(2) The composition and strength of the main body of the exhibition.

When it comes to organizing exhibitions, currently domestic second-tier cities are basically composed of three major forms: government exhibitions, association exhibitions, and company exhibitions, but their strengths are quite different. Government-run exhibitions have huge advantages in integrating resources, but they lack stamina; association-run exhibitions are in the ascendant and are still in the exploratory stage; companies-run exhibitions are the most in line with market rules and have the greatest development potential.

As a leading city in the domestic convention and exhibition industry, Shanghai’s 2011 development report shows that its locally registered main organizers have developed the fastest, accounting for about 80% of the total exhibition area. Among them, locally registered exhibition organizers There are 55 international exhibitions held by exhibition organizers with a total area of ??more than 100,000 square meters, which shows the city's exhibition strength. Although first-tier cities have strong resource and location advantages, the main structure of their convention and exhibition industries still has high reference value for second-tier cities.

Therefore, to measure the development of a city's convention and exhibition industry, it is necessary to evaluate and segment the city's exhibition entities. The more market-oriented the entity composition is, the greater its development potential will be. On the other hand, if we simply rely on attracting development as the basis of survival and rely too much on external exhibitions, although the urban exhibition industry will prosper in the short term, over time, once touring exhibitions drop sharply, the urban exhibition industry will inevitably encounter Waterloo. . From this perspective, the composition and strength of the exhibition hosting entities should be said to be the core elements for evaluating the development level of the urban exhibition industry.

(3) Quantity and quality of exhibitors and visitors.

Exhibitors and visitors are the most important content of any exhibition. They complement each other and are indispensable. For first-tier exhibition cities, such as the "Canton Fair" in Guangzhou and the "Auto Show" touring Shanghai and Beijing, the organization of exhibitors and visitors is easy and the risks are low. For the second-tier exhibition cities in the second tier, whoever can grasp the "vital gate" of exhibition and investment promotion can stand out and truly cultivate a mature exhibition of their own. The biggest indicator we use to evaluate the success of an exhibition is the quantity and quality of exhibitors and visitors. So when we evaluate whether a city's exhibition industry is mature, exhibitors and visitors are even more important indicators.

So how to evaluate is obviously the focus of all cities at the moment. The author believes that the focus needs to be on the evaluation and analysis of professional exhibitions. For consumer exhibitions, their friendliness ensures the number of visitors, while the quality of exhibitors is fully controlled by the organizers. Whether professional exhibitions have high-quality exhibitors and visitors can better reflect the true exhibition level of a city.

2. Supporting support system for the exhibition industry

“If you hold an exhibition event in a city, it is like a plane dropping money over the city.” This is a widely known saying in the industry. The classic jargon of "transmission" vividly describes the 1:9 driving effect of the exhibition industry on the urban economy. If the efficiency income of the convention and exhibition industry itself is "1", then the employment opportunities and social benefit income it drives from transportation, tourism, commerce, catering and even creation will reach "9-10". There is no doubt about the role of the convention and exhibition industry in urban economy, but conversely, if a city itself does not have a solid system to support the development of the convention and exhibition industry, then the convention and exhibition industry will become a huge burden for the city. Therefore, when we evaluate the development of a city's convention and exhibition industry, we must comprehensively consider its supporting supporting system, that is, location radiation, city carrying capacity and industrial driving force.

(1) Location radiation force

Location radiation force, as the name implies, includes two important concepts: "location" and "radiation". Speaking individually, the so-called location refers to the geographical location and transportation convenience of the city, while radiation is mainly reflected in the city's influence and driving surface. Looking at domestic convention and exhibition cities, in addition to the three representative regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, coastal cities and provincial capitals have become the forefront of the development of the convention and exhibition industry. The reason is nothing more than the strong hub function of the city. effect. A city's superior geographical location and convenient transportation are the basic guarantee for the success of an exhibition. Whether the interactive transportation between cities is developed and whether the public transportation within the city is perfect is a major factor in assessing the urban exhibition industry.

On the other hand, if the success of the exhibition is due to its location advantage, then the city's radiation is the icing on the cake for the exhibition. The size of a city's radiation range directly determines the breadth and dynamism of an exhibition's influence, especially professional exhibitions that are closely related to the industrial base. If the city has strong radiation power, the reputation of the exhibition in the industry will increase, which will in turn drive the development of surrounding industries and upstream and downstream industry chains. This chain effect requires us to face up to the important impact of urban location radiation on the development of the exhibition industry.

(2) Urban Carrying Capacity

In this evaluation factor, the arrival of large-scale domestic touring exhibitions is a large-scale carrying capacity test for domestic second-tier exhibition cities. In a short period of time, a large number of merchants and visitors from home and abroad gathered in a city and stayed in the city for 2-3 days or even more. It is bound to bring huge pressure to the entire city’s transportation, hotels, catering, tourism, business and other supporting service systems. Therefore, when evaluating the development stage or maturity of a city's convention and exhibition industry, the element of urban carrying capacity must be specifically quantified into the number of catering facilities in the city, the number of hotels and guest rooms at different levels in the city, the number of tourist attractions in the city, etc. To highlight the comprehensive supporting strength of the evaluated city.

(3) Industry driving forces

In the past two years, after experiencing the climax of exhibition hall construction, the domestic exhibition industry has gradually calmed down and focused on the management of exhibition halls and the exhibition industry. Especially in the second-tier exhibition cities that do not have advantages in location and resources, it is urgent to explore a new way in the fierce competition. The introduction of the element of "industrial driving force" will suddenly make researchers realize: a strong industrial driving force can attract touring exhibitions that are seeking transformation to find new ways; a strong industrial driving force can provide a new solution to the city's existing problems. Professional exhibitions provide the possibility of upgrading; strong industrial driving force can cultivate new themes and new entities for the local exhibition industry.

It is true that the source of industrial driving force must be a strong industrial foundation. Not all cities can have resources, but it is indeed a driving factor to measure the development of a city’s exhibition industry. Who can The driving force of industry and the driving force of exhibitions are organically combined, and whoever uses exhibitions to promote industry and industry to seek exhibitions will take the lead in the next wave of rapid development.

3. Urban Environmental System of Convention and Exhibition Industry

The last important system that affects the development of a city’s convention and exhibition industry is the urban environmental system. Only when the three major elements of economy, management, and research environment develop in a coordinated manner Only under the premise can the healthy and sustainable development of the urban exhibition industry be ensured.

(1) Economic environment

From the domestic and international situation, the economic development level of cities with relatively developed exhibition industry is generally the relatively high level of regional economic development in a country. central city.

The exhibition economy has a strong positive correlation with the level of economic development. The rapid economic growth and the expansion of the economic aggregate will inevitably create strong demand for the exhibition industry and promote the rapid development of the exhibition economy. Therefore, when measuring the development level of a city's convention and exhibition industry, the economic environment is the primary factor to consider. Among them, indicators such as the gross national economic product, the city's per capita GDP level, the city's total import and export volume, and the number of financial institutions owned by the city are all important components of the economic environment. Combined with the city's industrial structure and development modules, the economic context of the development of the city's exhibition industry will be basically clarified.

(2) Management environment

To achieve transcendence in the development of the urban exhibition industry, the management environment is crucial. This element should include the government's comprehensive management and coordination capabilities, the establishment and management policies of specialized exhibition management agencies, system construction, and the public service capabilities and service awareness of the government and exhibition industry associations. The government's attention and policy guidance are of great significance in creating a harmonious exhibition development environment. At this point, the convention and exhibition government agencies in domestic second-tier cities have been basically perfected, and the differences mainly focus on the introduction of convention and exhibition incentive policies and the extent to which the government takes the lead in organizing exhibitions. How to protect the urban exhibition industry and enhance the influence of this emerging industry has become the focus of discussion among industry insiders.

(3) Research environment

The research environment is another major factor in considering the self-examination and improvement of the urban exhibition industry. This is an important manifestation of evaluating the soft power of urban exhibition industry development. The quantity and quality of urban exhibition education and research institutions, the quantity and quality of exhibition training institutions, and the evaluation and coordination role of exhibition industry associations can all be the key points of the evaluation. In addition, since the rapid development of the exhibition industry requires a large number of talents as support, whether there is a sufficient reserve of exhibition talents, a high-quality exhibition talent team and an exhibition management team are also part of the evaluation of the development of the city's exhibition industry.

In short, evaluating the development of a city's exhibition industry is a systematic project. At present, many domestic cities have proposed concepts such as "convention and exhibition cities" and "international exhibition center cities", but these are just positionings. Without a complete evaluation system to correct them, any evaluation will be weak. Therefore, it is very urgent to establish a domestic professional exhibition evaluation agency and establish a complete exhibition evaluation system as soon as possible. It will be an important symbol of my country's exhibition industry's pursuit of international standards.