Over three days last week Multimodal 2011 brought together the biggest gathering of the UK’s freight transport and logistics professionals for many years. The fourth successive event of its type, Multimodal was held at the NEC in Birmingham and attracted nearly 4,500 visitors, exhibitors and seminar delegates to network, benchmark, exchange views and gather information. Despite the uncertain trading conditions in the market the event was 25% larger this year than last, with a record 200 exhibitors attending.
John Winter of specialist logistics and installation company Bishopsgate summed-up the thoughts of the many first-time exhibitors, “For a medium-sized, developing operator such as ourselves, every penny we invest in marketing must be justified. While we can’t quantify the ROI on our spend at Multimodal just yet, judging by the quality of the leads we’ve gathered over the past three days, I am hopeful that the returns will be pleasing to my board,” he said.
The response of the more established exhibitors at Multimodal can be summed-up by activity on the DB Schenker Logistics’ stand on the third day of the exhibition. The company maintained its carefully planned strategy for gaining visibility and the greatest potential sales contacts as possible. This included consistent communication with the market prior to the event, personalised invitations to its own contact database and training and motivation of stand personnel to welcome and care for visitors. Carl Hobbis, Marketing and Communications Director commented, “We are keen for Multimodal to be established as the annual meeting place for executives in our industry; purchasers and suppliers. The more customers of ours and our competitors that visit the exhibition in the future the happier we will be.”
Multimodal 2011 also played host to the event’s official charity, Transaid. Aggie Krasnolucka-Hickman, the Marketing & Events Executive in the UK, commented, “Participation in the Multimodal Show and the VIP elect club dinner enabled us not only to raise significant funds for our projects in Africa but also spread the word about the charity.”
Multimodal 2012 takes place at the NEC Birmingham on 1st to 3rd May.
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About Multimodal:
Multimodal took place from 5th to 7th April 2011 at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Multimodal attracted a large group of exhibitors and visitors from across the whole spectrum of freight transport, logistics and supply chain service providers than it ever has before.
Multimodal 2011 is the only UK event that brings together all sectors of freight transport under a single roof. The Seminars and Briefings, which are an integral part of the event, scheduled an enlightening and thought-provoking range of topics, tackled in an interactive fashion by panels of experts or as briefings presented by representatives from centres of excellence. Topics ranged from insight into the media, customs, container shipping trends, container swaps, security, reducing empty loads and ports’ role in adding value, to e-sourcing, collaborative logistics, supply chain optimisation, key performance indices (KPIs) and logistics data analytics.