Exploring how to match local products fair participation motivations of the visitors and businesses

Abstract

Fairs play an important role in bringing together producers and consumers. However, participating businesses and fair visitors are separate groups that fair organizers need to keep satisfied for long-term business success and sustainability of the event. For comparing both side motivations, two separate surveys were performed during a local products fair held in Antalya, Turkey. Fortyfive company representatives and 244 visitors took part in the studies and the results showed that "innovation and promotion" motivations of the businesses coincide with "learning and trying" motivations of the visitors.

A Research on Producer Reasons for Participation into Agricultural Fairs

“…Participant organizations organize marketing activities to generate a demand, to find new customers, improve sales and ultimately increase their market shares. Additionally, fairs allow organizations to meet new customers, to develop a positive image, to assess the efficiency of the products, to conduct a market search, to discover new products, to gain technical knowledge about the competitors, to see certain products and companies and to find new intermediaries or distributors (Santos and Mendoça, 2014;Caber et al, 2016). Fairs are also significant marketing tools allowing sellers to introduce and test new products, to monitor competitors and to have personal contacts with the customers (Havlíková and Kolárová, 2015).…”

“…Amusement search of fair visitors and their desires to participate fairs just for excursion purposes are developed totally independent of marketing purposes of the fairs. In general, fair visitors participate into fairs just to escape from routine living conditions, to learn about new products, to develop themselves, to benefit from the sales and to be more social (Caber et al, 2016). These fairs also increase social mobility and contribute to local life (Barros et al, 2016).…”