ITE Group endures slump as events turn geopolitical

Events and exhibitions organiser ITE Group warned that its bookings for next year were slightly behind this year due to challenging conditions in several markets, especially Turkey.

For the current year, although like-for-like revenues fell 8% in the fourth quarter, 52-week sales will fall 2.2% to £133m.

The weak pound was a help but not able to make up for difficult conditions with the attempted coup in Turkey hitting September events in the region, with its largest food exhibition, World Food Moscow seeing a further 11% decline in space sales to 20,200sqm.

With trading conditions continuing to be challenging in several regions, events in Turkey are expected to put a downer on trading in the region until 2018.

At the end of last month, ITE had booked roughly £58m of revenue for the 2017 financial year, down 10% on a year ago at absolute terms and 1% behind the prior year on a like-for-like basis.