In a time when economic challenges seemingly abounded for the exhibit transportation industry – including fuel prices once again reaching and then retreating from records and rules for “on duty” hours for truck drivers being more stringently enforced – things don’t seem to have changed very much for the industry. It’s business as usual, according to the results of the 2007 Exhibit Builder Transportation Survey. But that could be because transporting exhibits is simply an essential part of being able to do business.

Much like whether the cost of aluminum or plywood is simply a line item on the budget and a consideration in estimating costs for a project, so too exhibit transportation has become another commodity – essential and generally unyielding.

The Exhibit Builder Transportation Survey is sent to both exhibit builders and exhibit transportation suppliers. Some questions are specific to each group of respondents.

Transportation suppliers showed a slight increase in the total volume of exhibit-related transportation they handled, while builders reported a slight decline. It would appear, and the results also show, that somewhat more of the transportation orders are being made directly by exhibiting companies, rather than being arranged by exhibit builders.

As has been the case over the past several surveys, the declines and increases are not particularly sharp and may be in part the result of natural fluctuations in the number, type and location of exhibits handled by the responding companies in a given year. Some years there are more trade shows to participate in which are located at greater distances and which may involve more elaborate (or at least more expensive to ship) exhibits. This is especially true to international events and whether domestically or internationally results in spikes in transportation costs and volume.

Yet, the largest number of exhibit builder respondents said their exhibit-related transportation volume was between $50,001 and $75,000. This is a sharp turnabout from last year, when the largest portion of exhibit builder respondents reported their total transportation volumes were between $500,000 and $1 million.

The number of exhibit transportation clients has remained consistent from year to year. More than 54% of all builder respondents said they handled exhibit-related freight for between 26 and 50 clients in the past year and 45.95% said the figure was between 51 and 100.

On the other side, an equal percentage – 42.86 – of transportation suppliers responding to the survey said they handled exhibit-related transportation for the ranges of 26 to 50 clients and 501 to 1,000 clients. The remainder, 14.29%, said their exhibit transportation client base was between 251 and 500.

The greatest amount of exhibit freight continues to go out in wooden crates. Responses from transportation providers regarding the most popular method of packaging were generally unchanged from last year. Builders said 59.46% of their freight was shipped in crates and transportation suppliers put the figure at 60.71. In general, and as would be expected, builders reported a wider variety of packaging methods as being most widely used. Nearly 20% said exhibit freight is most frequently shipped in custom cases, and boxes and blanket-wrapped came in at 10.81% each. (The question asks how, in the respondent’s experience, most exhibit-related freight is shipped.) Almost 11% of suppliers said most freight came in custom cases and 28.57% said it was blanket-wrapped. None reported boxes as being the most frequent packaging.

Opinions on predominant destinations for freight were generally unchanged from last year. All suppliers and 70.27% of builders said it most often went directly to the exhibit hall. The remainder of builders, 29.73%, said it went to other destinations, primarily warehouses.

Builders reported that 2.54% of their exhibit transportation volume was to international destinations. Transportation suppliers put this figure at 32.86%. These results are statistically indistinguishable from last year’s reports. This appears to actually be a plateau toward normalcy in the amount of participation of U.S. companies in international exhibitions.

The typical responding exhibit builder had 1.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees handling exhibit-related transportation responsibilities, up from 1.06 last year. The typical exhibit transportation supplier respondent had 3.96 FTE positions for this work, down insignificantly from the 4.08 reported in last year’s survey. (An FTE is the equivalent of one employee working full-time on exhibit transportation. So if a builder had two employees, each of whom spent half of their time on freight, the builder would have one FTE.)

Just more than two-thirds of transportation supplier respondents said they had at least one employee who worked full-time handling exhibit-related transportation. For builders, the number was just under 20%.

How The Survey Was Conducted

The 2007 Exhibit Builder Magazine Transportation survey was mailed to 150 exhibit builders and 100 transportation suppliers, which included exhibit carrier head offices, corporate branch offices, agents and exhibit transportation consultants. Potential exhibit builder respondents were selected from a variety of sources that comprise a database of approximately 1,500 potential respondents. The exhibit builders were selected randomly from this database. While the selection of individual companies is random, the database itself reflects the national statistical segmentation of the exhibit design and construction field.

The potential transportation contractor respondents were selected from a database reflecting a variety of companies from throughout the nation. Again, selection is random, but the database is reflective of overall national percentage representation of each segment, such as van lines, common carriers, air freight contractors, etc.
The regional distribution of companies was determined by the relative frequency with which they appeared in the database of potential respondents. eb