Visitors' Objectives for Trade Exhibition Attendance: A Case Study on the East Mediterranean International Tourism and Travel Exhibition (EMITT)

This article takes a brief look at visitors' objectives for attending the East Mediterranean International Tourism and Travel Exhibition held in Turkey, in February 2006. The empirical data was collected via questionnaires from a sample of 295 visitors. Findings of the study indicated that visitors' objectives had four dimensions, which were called "entertainment," "developments," "exhibition facilities," and "vacationing." Significant differences were observed across the four dimensions. Results also showed that visitors' most important objective when attending the exhibition was to learn about the recent developments in products and services. Significant differences were observed among the objectives based on the demographic pro les of visitors in the sample. This study highlights the importance of deeply understanding visitors' objectives in order to enhance trade exhibitions' effectiveness.