Importance In the present time, the exhibition and congress activity is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy in the world, since it is an essential tool to promote business activity, industrial production growth and service expansion, to develop cooperative ties between businesses, to strengthen inter-regional and international cooperation, to maintain favorable image of a particular area, to demonstrate resource potential and investment attractiveness of a region in foreign markets. Therefore, the issues of assessing exhibitions and congresses activities and their impact on the Russian economy are extremely relevant. The assessment requires a system of quantitative and qualitative indicators. Their application will contribute to monitoring and updating the functions of this type of activities. Objectives The paper considers basic approaches (resource, process and economic) to the evaluation of exhibition and congress activity, as well as indicators and ratios used for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of this type of activity both in the Russian Federation and in other countries, which are leaders in this field. Methods On the basis of general scientific methods (comparison, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogy) we structured and analyzed different methodological approaches to the assessment of exhibition and congress activities. Results We identified and analyzed resource, process and economic approaches to the assessment of its level of development. We also discussed the strengths, weaknesses, as well as the system of indicators for each of them. Conclusions and Relevance The analysis of the existing methodological approaches revealed insufficient study of problems related to assessing the level of exhibition and congress activities' development, the objective necessity to adapt and update these activities according to the specifics of the economy and regions of the Russian Federation. Therefore, we consider it is necessary to develop new novel methodological approaches, which will enable to assess more precisely the development level of exhibition and congress activities.
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