Who Wants to Visit a Trade Fair in Germany?
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 8/23/2004
New members of the European Union, that's who — at least according to the latest study by the Assn. of the German Trade Fair Industry, AUMA.
After releasing its 2003 annual report in June, compiling and analyzing the performance of the country's trade fairs, AUMA now has parsed its data and conducted further surveys to determine exactly where all the foreigners who went to fairs last year came from.
As it turns out, most of the non-German attendees were fellow EU members — 58 percent to be exact. Representing an increase of 1 percent over the previous year, nearly 1.1 million of the 1.9 million foreign visitors in 2003 came from the EU. Another 435,000 came from elsewhere in Europe.
As for overseas visitors, Germany attracted 190,000 from Asia — including 130,000 from East Asia and 60,000 from the Middle East and 100,000 from North America. Only negligible numbers — 1 percent and 2 percent of the total foreign attendance, respectively — came from Australia/Oceania and Africa.
Reflecting the overall declines reported in AUMA's annual study, the survey of foreign attendance included slight dips. The total number of people visiting German trade fairs from abroad was down by about 10,000, or 1 percent of its share of the total attendance, with fewer visitors from Asia and North America.
On the positive side, companies are continuing to head for Germany to exhibit. The one bright spot in the annual report was the number of foreign exhibitors at German trade fairs: The number increased by 1.8 percent compared with the previous year.
