Trade Fairs and Their Role In Promoting the Economy

In contrast to consumer fairs，trade fairs and expositions are professionally organized to help companies demonstrate their latest products and services. Trade expositions are primarily attended by company representatives. Meetings with suppliers and customers spur more comprehensive competition among rivals and they are a handy tool for determining the latest market trends.

Trade expos have a long history. Along with the rise of merchant capitalism，European countries began holding trade fairs and these spread across the continent. Initially，craft goods and agricultural produce were the mainstay of trade fairs. From the late eighteenth century，driven by the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution，expositions in Western Europe and later in North America became even more common. Some goods made in China were also shown，but few of them included anything with known brands.

As the use of electricity became more common and spurred industrialization，manufactured goods were classified into sub-categories，and trade expos were upgraded into a professional activity. In the beginning of the 20th century，specialized exposition organizers emerged to host trade shows. Convention centers were built as venues that provided a rotating calendar of trade shows.

Since the 1990s，globalization has developed and international trade has become more closely integrated with foreign direct investment. So-called vertical FDI，a popular academic definition，has been growing rapidly during the past 30 years. Meanwhile，there was a rapid expansion of global trade，particularly in East Asia，including China. In 2001，China officially joined the World Trade Organization，spurring the Chinese economy. China ultimately dominated the exhibitions industry in Asia，accounting for more than 55% of all trade space sold in the Asian region in after the global financial crisis.

While Covid-19 has forced the cancellation or postponement of all sorts of large gatherings，including trade fairs，there is little doubt that expositions will once again have an important role in as expanding cooperation networks. As one product consists more and more of specialized parts from across the globe，face-to-face meetings could help firms lower information costs and increase their survival odds by searching for more partners across the supply chains. A typical trade exposition still has a central show floor with numerous booths – much like the early days of the trade fair – but much more variety. There are also more professional seminars to provide product and company information as well discussions of industrial best practices，often with the support of remote video and virtual attendance.

According to industry statistics，the top three venues are the Hannover Messe，World Market Center Las Vegas and Messe Frankfurt，with inner exposition space of 496,000，460,000 and 366,000 square meters. The top three fairs with a published attendance of more than 50,000 visitors in 2017 were AgQuip (Australia)，AGRO (Ukraine) and ANUGA (Germany). The China Import and Export Fair has been held twice a year in Guangzhou since its inauguration in 1957. It is China's largest trade fair，presenting complete varieties of goods with a vast number of attendees and huge business turnover. In 2018，China began an import-oriented event，the China International Import Expo，to serve the transformation of an investment-driven economy into a consumption-driven one.

The Role of Trade Fairs

Despite their long history，trade fairs are rarely explored in academic studies. Not until the late 20th century，did politicians and scholars begin to examine the trade expositions in a serious and professional manner to determine their benefits and shortcomings. An early definition states that trade expositions are "events that bring together，in a single location，a group of suppliers who set up physical exhibits of their products and services from a given industry or discipline."

Instant improvement in trade value or volumes from the exposition has diminished in more recent decades. Part of the explanation is that the technical information is more easily obtained by other means and the physical attendance at an exposition is less essential. But academic studies in the 1990s found that the results of evaluations of trade show performance have been quite limited when performance is measured solely with sales figures. Even with other sales measures like obtaining leads，developing prospects，and obtaining mailing lists were introduced，still little agreement exists regarding the assessment of a positive exposition performance.

However，in behavior-based empirical studies，subjective and more complex methods，rather than simply sales，are used to evaluate the effectiveness of trade expositions. In the studies about the behavior-based results，more activities are identified. First，there are activities about the collection of information on competitors，customers，industry trends，and new products at trade expositions. Second，there are marketing activities linked to building corporate influence and reputations at the trade show. Third，there are activities related to strengthening the business bonds of company employees and customers. Fourth