Real experiences and virtual reality clearly complement each other – at least at the stands of German exhibitors. This is one of the results of the AUMA Trade Fair Trend 2020, a representative survey of 500 German exhibiting companies by the market research institute KANTAR on behalf of AUMA – the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry.

Around 80% of the companies surveyed exhibit real products specifically with the aim of making these products tangible with all the senses, and over half of the exhibitors want to offer visitors active, real experiences at their stand. At the same time, 17% use virtual reality to present special applications and custom-made products. Of the somewhat larger companies with sales of over 125 million euros, this proportion is even around a third. 11% rely on augmented reality, this figure is twice as high for larger companies. However, companies of this size are also those who want to create real trade fair experiences to an above-average degree and who aim to appeal to all the senses. This is because the sales strategy of many companies currently involves making their product presentations more emotional. This goal can obviously be achieved efficiently by combining real and virtual tools at trade fairs.

AUMA Trade Fair Trend also shows that exhibitions are still very popular in business-to-business communication: Exhibiting companies will invest around 48% of their B-to-B budgets in trade fair participation over the next two years, the same amount as in 2018/19.

The complete results of the AUMA Trade Fair Trend 2020 on the plans of German exhibitors for 2020/21 are due to be published at the end of February 2020.