A newly released report from UFI, the UFI Global Exhibition Industry Statistics report, revealed that in 2024, 4.7 million exhibiting companies hosted 318 million visitors, resulting in €368 billion (US$398 billion) in economic impact.
The report estimates that 32,000 exhibitions were held worldwide in 2024, a similar number to pre-pandemic. Their activity, measured by the space rented by exhibiting companies, is close to the level of 2019: 138 million square metres against 143.7 million square metres, showing a slight decrease of -0.8% per year on average.
Additional research from the Global Exhibitors and Visitors Insights / Net Promoter Score report produced by Explori shows that satisfaction from participants has improved post-pandemic, between +10 and +31 points for visitors, and +20 and +29 points for exhibiting companies, depending on the region of the world.
In a separate and newly-released Global Economic Impact of Exhibitions (2024) report, produced by UFI in collaboration with Oxford Economics, the focus shifts to evaluating the broader economic consequences generated by the exhibition industry.
This first level of impact, which includes inflation, benefits not just the exhibition industry, but all related sectors, such as accommodation, restaurants and transport, and it has increased by 3.8% per year on average since 2019.
Adding on the indirect and induced impacts generated in the economy, the total global economic impact of exhibitions on hosting territories reaches €368 billion in total output and €215 billion in total GDP, corresponding to 4.3 million full-time equivalent jobs.
Europe was the largest market in terms of visitors, welcoming 102 million in 2024 (32% of the total worldwide). North America ranked second, with 89 million visitors, followed by the Asia-Pacific with 84 million visitors.
Since 2019, the total space rented by exhibitors has performed differently across regions, with average annual trends varying from -1.4% in Europe to -0.9% in Asia-Pacific, -0.4% in Central and South America, -0.3% in North America, stable in Africa, and +0.9 % in the Middle East.
Direct spending related to exhibitions (including organiser operations, exhibitor investments, and visitor expenditure) totalled €150 billion. When accounting for indirect and induced effects across supply chains and local economies, the sector’s total contribution reached €368 billion in total output: €175 billion in North America, €108 billion in Europe, and €73 billion in Asia-Pacific.
Overall, exhibitions globally generated a total output of €78,800 per exhibiting company and €8,500 per square metre of venue gross indoor exhibition space.
The Global Economic Impact of Exhibitions report shows the far-reaching impact of the exhibition sector, which generates €215 billion of total GDP supported by exhibitions globally would rank the sector as the 57th largest economy globally, larger than the economies of countries such as Hungary, Qatar, Nigeria, and Ecuador.
The report was produced by UFI in collaboration with Oxford Economics and is based on comprehensive industry data and econometric modeling covering more than 180 countries.
Both reports are available free of charge on the UFI website.
