Next Thursday 10 October, the time has come and the Taxi Expo 2019 will take place in Houten. The program includes the trade fair with more than forty exhibitors, ten workshops and the Test Drive Experience. Taxi Expo is the annual trade event for everyone who works in the taxi industry, but has been struggling with visitor numbers in recent years.

Freshening up should attract more visitors to Houten

The organization of the Taxi Expo indicates that the fair has undergone a major refresh during the coming edition. For example, the fair takes place in a different hall than before within Expo Houten, and there are two catering terraces instead of one.

Whether this is enough to breathe new life into the stock exchange remains to be seen. In recent years, the fair has become less attractive and the number of visitors has fallen sharply. The fair, which was spread over several days, was reduced to one day, but the exhibitors saw costs rise and the interest of managers and decision-makers had declined for years. Many exhibitors dropped out in the meantime. This year, the organization hopes to register over a thousand visitors.

National Taxi Day was too much for Boersma

Amsterdam RAI once took over Fleet Management Expo and Taxi Expo in 2010 from 402 Events, part of Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG). The two fairs together accounted for about four thousand visitors per edition. 

Due to the market developments at the time, the taxi industry that had been under pressure for years and especially the fact that an extra event had been added, namely the National Taxi Day, RAI as a company had to think about what they wanted to do with Taxi Expo.

The trade fair was taken over by ProMedia Group from Amsterdam RAI. The takeover then took place on the eve of the Taxi Expo. This was scheduled for November 28, 2014, but was immediately postponed to 2015. Amsterdam RAI had then informed the two partners, KNV Taxi and Challans & Faber / Passenger Transport Magazine, about the sale of the Taxi Expo to ProMedia Group.

Ids Boersma, then General Manager RAI Exhibitions who left on January 1, 2017, said that he was happy and that they could serve the market with this. But the move from the Amsterdam RAI to the conference building in Houten was probably one of the biggest mistakes, as the Amsterdam location always guaranteed a flash visit from many hundreds of Amsterdam taxi drivers that we have never seen in Houten again.

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