An article uncomplimentary to our industry appeared in the 31 December edition of the Wall Street Journal. Doug Ducate, President and CEO of CEIR decided to respond to the article with this letter:
Gentlemen:
The 31 December issue of The Wall Street Journal reprinted a portion of an article about convention centers originally published by Steven Malanga in the City Journal Winter 2012 issue. The opening statement in the article that claims convention business has been in decline for two decades is incorrect.
The benchmark data for the convention and exhibition industry was published in a paper written by Bob Black and delivered in a lecture at Cornell University 19 November 1986. That paper identified 2,733 business-to-business exhibitions held in 1986 with 41.4 million attendees.
A second benchmark study of the exhibition industry was published by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) in 2001. The CEIR Industry Census identified 7,933 business-to-business exhibitions held in 2000 with 59.6 million attendees. Clearly an increase of 190 percent indicates significant growth in the 1990’s.
The CEIR Census was updated as scheduled in 2010. That edition identified 8,962 business-to-business exhibitions with 61 million attendees. Despite the economic declines in 2001-2002 and again in 2008-2010, the exhibition industry recorded continued growth in the number of events during these periods.
Since the first, purpose-built convention centers opened in the 1960’s following the completion of the interstate highway system and the commercial introduction of the jet airplane, the exhibition industry has thrived and shown resistance to decline during economic downturns and resilience in recovery following a downturn.
Perhaps next week while you are covering the largest annual convention and exhibition held in the U.S., the Consumer Electronics Show, you can find an opportunity to correct the record on the industry performance for the last two decades.
Here are two videos of Doug discussing this issue.
Please feel free to share your opinions on this topic by commenting.
