A recent survey conducted by HSSO in association with Nexus World Services found that over half of respondents do not use any technology at all to assist in planning trade shows, while 47% believe that their existing systems do not assist them in managing tradeshows and events.

The survey is part of a series designed to understand sales challenges better and to optimise sales management in the hotel industry. It focused on sales and tradeshow/event management and questioned over 30 top hotel groups about how they organised tradeshow participation and measured their performance. With a number of important industry events like Confex London, ITB Berlin, Imex Frankfurt and ATM Dubai happening in the early part of the year, the survey was carried out in February/March.

Survey participants were all active sales and operational persons at different levels of the hotel industry. More than half of respondents were directly involved in organising attendance at the ITB Berlin and a large percentage of their work involved co-ordinating with other team members within the company.

Some of the key aspects on tradeshow management that emerged include:

• 47% find it a time consuming exercise with 7% rating it as very difficult
• 53% say that it takes over 20 hours to organise a show like the ITB
• 57% do not use any technology to assist in planning such a show
• 47% of those surveyed believe that existing systems are not be able to assist in management of tradeshows and events
• All companies track effectiveness through a combination of the number of leads generated (80%), the number of visitors at the stand (66.67%), the number of new contacts made (66.67%) and actual conversion of leads into sales (73.33%).

With a minimum of twenty hours dedicated to organising a single tradeshow (albeit a large one like the ITB), the number of total hours sales teams spend organising shows and events are multiplied many times over. And with sales persons expected to sell more and administer less, optimal sales management processes combined with the right technology tools, will have a dramatic impact on the productivity of the sales force.

More details on the survey are available and free to download at
http://www.hospitalitysalessolutions.co.uk/MEDIA_ARTICLES.html