Asia Pacific is the third largest exhibition market in the world with 84 million visitors in 2024. Pictured: The Meetings Show Asia Pacific 2025. Photo Credit: Northstar Travel Group
Europe was the largest market for exhibitions in 2024 in terms of visitors, welcoming 102 million last year, with North America ranking second, with 89 million visitors, followed by Asia Pacific with 84 million visitors.
Central & South America ranked in fourth place (34 million visitors), with the Middle East coming fifth (seven million), and Africa in sixth place with two million visitors. This is according to data from two new UFI reports, Global Exhibition Industry Statistics and Global Economic Impact of Exhibitions. Key takeaways include:
Exhibition activity returns to pre-pandemic levels
The report estimates that 32,000 exhibitions were held worldwide in 2024, a similar number to pre-pandemic, with 4.7 million exhibiting companies welcoming 318 million visitors. Their activity, measured by the space rented by exhibiting companies, is close to the level of 2019: 138 million sqm against 143.7 million sqm, showing a slight decrease of -0.8% per year on average.
Participation satisfaction is on the rise
Attendees – both visitors and exhibitors – displayed increased levels of satisfaction post pandemic, according to additional research from the Global Exhibitors and Visitors Insights / Net Promoter Score report, produced by Explori. Satisfaction has improved by +10 and +31 points for visitors, and +20 and + 29 points for exhibiting companies, depending on the region of the world.
Global economic impact of exhibitions has increased
The direct output generated by the production of exhibitions and other exhibitors and visitors’ spending is US$162 billion. The report says 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. When accounting for indirect and induced effects across supply chains and local economies, the sector’s total contribution reached US$398 billion in total output, including US$189 billion in North America, US$117 billion in Europe and US$79 billion in Asia-Pacific.
More than one million companies exhibited in Asia-Pacific
Statistics for the Asia Pacific region reveal that alongside 84 million visitors, there were 1.3 million exhibiting companies in 2024 and 35.6 million sqm of booth space. In terms of direct impact, this equates to US$31 billion in direct spending (representing spending to plan and produce exhibitions, exhibitions-related travel and other direct spending, such as spending by visitors and exhibitors), US$19 billion in direct GDP and 455,760 jobs directly supported by exhibitions.
Chris Skeith, UFI managing director and CEO said: “These reports demonstrate the resilience and recovery of our industry and whilst the numbers and size of individual exhibitions may have changed, from a global perspective we can see customer satisfaction has increased, and the economic significance of our industry remains hugely important to our industry, our host cities and the markets we serve.”