Features
Toronto Trade Shows Are Big Business, Study Finds
Visitors, show organizers spend more than $1.1 billion in the region, generate $260 million in tax dollars
BY REBECCA KENDALL
The film industry is a billion-dollar business in Toronto, but it's not the only big sector fuelling Toronto's tourism and economic growth so explosively.
Researchers in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) recently released a study that proves what those in the consumer and trade show industry have been saying for years: they, too, are a big money-maker for the city.
Toronto is the second most popular place in North America to host trade and consumer shows, says Prof. Marion Joppe, HTM director and lead author of the study, which was commissioned by Tourism Toronto.
The researchers found that trade and consumer shows draw more than 2.3 million people to the greater Toronto area each year. Visitors and show organizers spend more than $1.1 billion in the region and generate $260 million in tax dollars for the municipal, provincial and federal governments.
“The impact is bigger than we had anticipated,” says Joppe, who worked on the study with HTM professor Chris Choi and 2006 MBA graduate Dongkoo Yun. The figures are conservative because the results excluded respondents who qualified as tourists but weren't in Toronto primarily for trade or consumer shows, she adds.
Exhibiting companies and show organizers also directly support 10,000 jobs in the region, she says.
These findings are good news for an industry that's been given short shrift in the past, says Joppe, who was appointed to a seat on the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council in January.
Case in point: When a fund was set up to help Toronto's devastated tourism industry recover from the impact of the 2003 SARS outbreak, people who manage and operate convention centres and other venues that host shows were refused assistance, she says.
“They were told point-blank that they weren't tourism. The existing surveys captured conventions and conferences and business travel, but they didn't address trade and consumer shows.”
To rectify the situation, Tourism Toronto, the official destination-marketing agency for Toronto's tourism industry, approached Joppe to do a new study.
“They knew me and they knew the capabilities of this school,” she says. “There really is no other academic institution that can do this work.”
Tourism Toronto's plan for a quick two-month study was expanded into a two-year study on the advice of Joppe, who insisted that more time was needed to get strong and definitive data.
“This needed to be done correctly, and we needed to survey a number of shows held throughout the year. This made the study more complex, but in the end we were able to fully capture the magnitude of the business.”
The researchers conducted surveys to assess the impact of visitors, exhibitors, operators and organizers. Trade and consumer shows are expensive to mount, she says, adding that hiring local workers, renting space, advertising and paying for utilities all contribute to bringing money into the city.
In addition, out-of-town workers hired for the shows spend money on hotels, restaurants, shopping and entertainment while in Toronto.
“These dollars stay in the local economy and have a significant impact,” she says.
Now that the study's been released, Joppe expects the industry will begin to see more support from the city.
“Toronto's trade and consumer shows have never been marketed. I think you'll see the city developing some kind of marketing strategy with the venues.”
Joppe's team has already been asked to update these findings in a couple of years, and Toronto's venue operators are encouraging other major cities to fund similar studies.