Casual Dining reports 9% increase in attendance for 2017
Casual Dining enjoys its best show yet with nearly 5,000 attendees “We don’t have to fly across the Atlantic to find the latest industry innovations under one roof any more – Casual Dining has brought all that and more to the UK,” says Karen Forrester, CEO of TGI Friday’s UK. “Casual Dining is always a fantastic opportunity to discover something new,” says Garry Duncan, operations director at Nando’s. “It’s become the meeting place for our industry.” “Brilliant show again, with the most innovation I have seen at any of the shows this year,” says Tim Foster, co-founder of the Yummy Collection. “I thoroughly enjoy visiting Casual Dining. It’s a must attend event!” says John Metcalf, commercial director at Strada. Among the attendees were also senior decision makers from Jamie’s Italian, JD Wetherspoon, Enterprise Inns, Whitbread, Marston’s, Revolution Bars Group, Mitchells & Butlers, PizzaExpress, Pizza Hut Restaurants, Carluccio’s, Prezzo, GBK, Punch, ASK Italian, Zizzi, Greene King, Bella Italia, Café Rouge, Las Iguanas, Giraffe, K10 Restaurants, ETM Group, Côte Restaurants, Yo! Sushi, Papa John’s, Glendola Leisure Group, Bourne Leisure, Hollywood Bowl, The Rank Group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, Stonegate Pub Company, Charles Wells, Compass Group, Sodexo, WSH, Bidvest
Foodservice, Hilton, Thwaites hotels & spas, and wagamama (winner of ‘Multiple Casual Dining Restaurant of the Year’ at the Casual Dining Restaurant & Pub Awards 2017).
The industry’s favourite show Chris Brazier, group event director of Casual Dining, calls the support of the show ‘phenomenal’, highlighting the dedication of the thousands of attendees who turned out over both days. Casual Dining 2017 was a record-breaker in every respect, he says. “The fact that we’ve just enjoyed our best ever show – with record numbers of buyers and, more importantly, a record quality of buyers – who battled travel strikes and Storm Doris to attend – is testament to this wonderful industry of conscientious decision makers, who simply wouldn’t miss the two days a year that the casual dining sector gets together. Their support of the show, as always, has been phenomenal. Thank you to all our visitors, exhibitors, speakers, associations, and media partners,” he says. It was this quality of attendees, the high level of engagement, and quantity of new business leads that impressed countless exhibitors. Prompting over 75% of them (another record) to rebook for next year before the show had even closed.
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