California Restaurant Association

About This Project

The California Restaurant Association (“CRA”) retained Pulse Group professionals to assist them in the development of a baseline user study for the Western Restaurant Show (“WRS”), the second largest foodservice related trade show in the US, with more than 1,000 exhibitors and 40,000 attendees. The objective of the assignment was to help CRA better understand the attitudes, preferences and perceptions of attendees and exhibitors about WRS and to assist them in developing marketing and promotional strategies to enhance the quality and profitability of the show.  During the course of our work we interviewed more than 500 former, potential and current attendees and exhibitors using both telephone and intercept survey formats. Survey questions focused on four key areas including drivers and inhibitors to attending/exhibiting, show marketing and management, show content and innovations and satisfaction. Based on the information developed we recommended nine detailed marketing and promotional strategies that CRA could implement to achieve their business objectives.