Grzegorz Leszczyński, Marek Zieliński, Piotr Zmyślony

Abstract: The literature suggests that creation of tourism products needs cooperation of various entities, which, as a consequence, make up a network focussed on a value for tourists. From this  perspective tourism products are created in destinations as amalgams of attractions, services, commodities and facilities offered and consumed locally under the destinations’ brand names. We assume that a single actor has not enough resources to answer to the complexity of the demand therefore they interact with other actors to supply their sub-products and create the complex, network-origin product for business tourists. The borderline of such product may be defined by the needs of the customer or by the interactions of the actors. Our goal is to analyze the elements, levels and borders of products delivered for business tourists. It is reflected in network concept of trade fairs, which shows them as a complex business turism  product created by the actors involved both directly and indirectly in trade fairs. The case of international trade fairs was chosen, as trade fairs are the example of complex  product for business turism. We collected data from the organizers of that event and its  participants (exhibitors+visitors). The respondents were the managers of companies involved in organizing the event and 300 participants treated as business tourists. The results enabled qualification of elements of business tourism product to one of three groups: core, enhanced or wide and allowed to capturing the borderline of product for  business tourism and comparison of perceptions of the product between the suppliers and customers. Thus we propose the Network Concept of Trade Fairs which leads to a new  broader perspective on a trade fair as an event that combines networks on a business level and that is embedded in the supply tourist network. This paper brings to the literature the example of complexity of product from business tourist industry and presents the differences of perception of such product.

Keywords: trade fairs, networks, business tourism, complex product, networked product.

Leszczyński, G., Zieliński, M., & Zmyślony, P. (2015). The Borderline of Complexity of Business Tourism Product – needs of customers or interactions of suppliers?, 31th Annual IMP Conference „Organizing Sustainable BtoB Relationships – Designing in Changing Networks”, Kolding (Denmark), 25–29 August 2015 [PDF].