In the 21st century, the modern service industry has been developing rapidly and replacing the contents of the traditional service industry under the trend of globalization and economic integration. As a new urban smokeless industry, the exhibition in...
In the 21st century, the modern service industry has been developing rapidly and replacing the contents of the traditional service industry under the trend of globalization and economic integration. As a new urban smokeless industry, the exhibition industry has become a booster of the modern service industry with its characteristics of high efficiency and high returns. Developed countries are the birthplace of modern exhibition industry, and its total scale and strength have become extremely large and powerful over the decades.
Since the 1990s of the last century, due to the externally-oriented development strategy and steady economic growth of China, the exhibition industry in China has rapidly developed and become a new growth engine of the national economy. Especially after China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO),its international trade volume has grown faster and so has the exhibition industry. However, compared with exhibition industries in developed countries and the rest of the world,the exhibition industry in China is still insufficiently developed. This paper aims to help expand the comparative advantage research on the exhibition industry and to give advice for improving the exhibition industry in China.
According to the development situation of the exhibition industry in China, this paper first gives summaries of developmental history of the exhibition industry, including definitions, features and the current situation of other countries. It then goes to investigate the influence of the WTO policy on the exhibition industry of China, and the main condition for the development of the exhibition industry in China with relevant statistics. Next, according to the basic comparative advantage theory of international trade, this paper stresses its analysis on the comparison of exhibition industry developments of China and the exhibition giant Germany, in terms of four parts like outside condition, scale, speed, and hardware/software aspects. The conclusion is that China does have potential comparative advantage in its exhibition industry. Finally, this paper makes some advice and recommendations on how to develop the potential comparative advantage of the exhibition industry in China, suggesting the expansion of green(environment-friendly) exhibitions and cyber (internet) exhibitions.