The Coronavirus and its effects on the German trade fair industry

International trade fairs cancelled or postponed

The Association of the German Trade Fair Industry, AUMA, points out on its website that Germany’s share of the global trade fair market is just under 10 percent. Germany is the world’s number 1 trade fair venue for international trade fairs. This is why trade fair cancellations or postponements due to the corona virus hit the German trade fair market particularly hard.

At the end of February, the ITB in Berlin, FIBO in Cologne and Light & Building in Frankfurt were cancelled or postponed shortly after each other. Further trade fairs will certainly follow.

World’s leading trade fair ITB in Berlin cancelled due to corona

The corona virus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) also arrived in Germany at the end of February 2020 and immediately affected the trade fair business. The German government recommended making major events dependent on certain conditions. The risk assessment should take into account the principles of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). As a result, the world’s largest tourism fair, the ITB in Berlin, was cancelled on 28 February. The risk was judged to be too high. The ITB was to take place from 4 to 8 March. In the days and weeks before, many exhibitors had already cancelled their participation. Of the 10,000 exhibitors expected from all over the world, 22 would have come from China, 25 more from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The fair usually attracts around 160 000 visitors.

FIBO and Light & Building postponed

The Cologne fitness fair FIBO, which was scheduled for the beginning of April, will be postponed to the second half of 2020 due to Corona. FIBO attracts over 1000 exhibitors and around 145,000 visitors from 135 countries every year.

Messe Frankfurt has also decided to postpone one trade fair. Light + Building, the world’s leading trade fair for lighting and building technology, is now scheduled to open its doors from 27 September to 2 October 2020.

However, embedded World in Nuremberg still took place last week. Although many exhibitors had previously cancelled their participation, the exhibition company considered the risk to be still tradable. In many places in the Frankenhalle exhibitors had been provided with disinfectants.

Association of the Exhibition Industry AUMA must correct itself within a few days

How quickly the situation changed within a few days is shown by a message from AUMA a few days before the end of February: It still stated that all trade fairs would take place in Germany. On 29 February, the message was replaced by a page on which a continuous report about cancellations and changes of dates of fairs in Germany and abroad is published.

More information

Official Website AUMA: www.auma.de
Official Website Robert Koch-Institut: www.rki.de
Official Website ITB Berlin: www.itb.com/en
Official Website FIBO: www.fibo.com
Official Website Light + Building: light-building.messefrankfurt.com
Official Website embedded World: www.embedded-world.de