Messe Muenchen Consolidates Asian Operations
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 8/16/2004
German trade fair organizer Messe Muenchen Intl. has consolidated Asian operations into one office in Shanghai, home to the Shanghai New Intl. Expo Centre.
As part of the consolidation, Ronald Unterburger, managing director of Messe Muenchen's Singapore subsidiary, joined the management of the Shanghai subsidiary, headed by Zhang Shuqing.
Eugen Egetenmeir, deputy executive director of Messe Muenchen, said at a press conference last month that combining all Asian operations under one roof in Shanghai will enable the company to strengthen sales, both inside and outside China.
Messe Muenchen is a partner in the Shanghai New Intl. Expo Centre, along with Shanghai Pudong Land Development and German trade fair organizers Deutsche Messe and Messe Duesseldorf.
Messe Muenchen produces eight annual shows at the facility, covering electronics, sports and fashion, construction, jewelry, biotech, environmental protection and transportation. Featuring 18 halls and 250,000 square meters (nearly 2.7 million square feet) of exhibition space, the venue hosted 41 exhibitions that spanned more than 1 million sq. meters (nearly 1.1 million sq. ft.) and drew 1.4 million visitors in 2003. Some 60 events are slated to be held there this year.
Messe Muenchen recently closed down its Chicago-based North American subsidiary and canceled plans to bring its ELECTRONICA brand to the United States. The organizer had intended to collocate electronicaUSA with CMP Media's Embedded Systems Conference, set for March 6–10 in San Francisco. A lack of vendor support was blamed for canceling the show.
The CMP conference, however, will go on as planned. "The event is going to continue as it has for the last 17 years," said Tim Avila, CMP group marketing director.
