Effect of factors affecting being a trade show brand on brand image and participation decision: The case of tourism trade shows

This research was conducted for presenting that which trade show brand factors have an effect on a decision on trade show participation and formation of trade show brand image at which level. It was principally required to determine what the brand factors being specific to the trade show product are in order to conduct the research. From this aspect, the sequential mixed research method was preferred for the research. Firstly, qualitative research in which there were 13 participants was conducted in order to determine the trade show brand factors. It was utilized from the content analysis technique for the data analysis of qualitative research. According to the results of the qualitative research, participants are affected by 12 factors while evaluating a trade show brand. These factors are; "Brand name", "Logo", "Slogan", "Media", "People", "Destination", "Venue", "Organizer", "Process", "Continuity", "Visitor" and "Participant". In the second stage, it was measured by means of a questionnaire in which brand factors revealed in qualitative research are used as a scale that at what level the brand factors affected the trade show image perception and decision on trade show participation. As a result of factor analysis performed for examining data collected by quantitative research method, it was seen that 12 brand factors gathered under 7 dimensions. These dimensions are "Target Audience", "People", "Organizational success", "Media", "Venue", "Destination" and "Corporate visual identity". According to the research results, while it seems that "Target Audience" dimension of brand factors "greatly affects" the image perception and decision on participation, it was found that it "affects" each one of other dimensions. It was found that the results of quantitative research showed parallelism with the qualitative research and researches supported each other.