UFI’s ICT Committee Chair Werner Krabec (Messe Düsseldorf) has announced the winner of the first UFI ICT competition on the theme “Best web applications for visitors”. VNU Exhibitions Europe, with her partner Marqit, was acclaimed overwhelmingly as the winner for their “Online Visitor Model: ExpoRoute” programme
The selection of the winner of the 2008 UFI ICT Award was made by an electronic vote of the international jury from sixteen countries. The three competition finalists, Fiera Milano – Expopage S.p.a. (Milan), Messe München GmbH (Munich), and VNU Exhibitions Europe (Utrecht). They made their concluding presentations before the participants of the UFI ICT Focus Meeting held in Brno, CZ, on December 3, 2008.
Left to right: Werner Krabec, Chair UFI ICT Committee (Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, Germany) Marloes van den Berg, Project Manager (VNU Exhibitions Europe, Netherlands) Roderick Wijsmuller, Managing Director Marqit (VNU Exhibitions Europe, Netherlands) Maria Martínez García, Vice-Chair UFI ICT Committee (IFEMA, Spain)
This UFI competition, open to both UFI members and non-members, recognizes the quality and creativity of exhibition organisers in the field of information and communications technologies. The 2008 UFI topic “Best web applications for visitors,” required that participants submit entries demonstrating value-added services related to exhibition visitor programmes.
VNU Exhibitions Europe and Marqit “Exporoute” programme provides incentives to visitors to help them in making their visiting decisions. The UFI ICT Award winning entry is a unique matchmaking tool that uses an algorithm to match the contents of the tradeshow’s online exhibitor directory to specific visitor profiles generated by the show’s pre-registration module. Visitors are given insight into which exhibitors match their profile concerning product and services demands and the Exporoute advises them on business cases and whitepapers they can download to gain more information on certain subjects – all based on their personal profile. When a visitor downloads a particular document, the exhibitor from whom the document originated is given the opportunity to contact that visitor to make an appointment.
Marloes van den Berg, VNU Exhibitions Project Manager, said, “Exporoute is an online matchmaking project which successfully provides visitors with a plan specifically tailored for their needs. The result is that we can provide our exhibitors with many more high quality visitors who know precisely what they were looking for.” Also, with the development of Exporoute a connection has been created between the online search possibilities that are offered to IT-professionals during the orientation and selection process of IT solutions and the physical trade show participation. By translating the online process to a live environment you see that the cross media approach works for end users and suppliers, according to Roderick Wijsmuller, managing director at Marqit. Building on this success VNU Exhibitions Europe plans to roll out Exporoute across their entire IT exhibition portfolio.
UFI’s ICT Committee Chair Werner Krabec, congratulated all the participants in this first UFI ICT competition saying, “UFI”s ICT Award competition joins with the UFI Operations and UFI Marketing competitions to provide the exhibition industry with an exciting opportunity to share professional knowledge while recognizing the excellence of its ICT programmes.”
