GERMANY – Germany will see no significant increase in exhibition space until 2015 at the earliest, with the Messes foregoing expansion.
According to a survey conducted by the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA), a total of €330m will instead be invested in the renovation and modernisation of existing event space over the next five years.
Harald Kötter, spokesman for AUMA, says the lack of expansion suggests a levelling-off of industry growth.
“There is no necessity to expand the capacity if we have growth of only one or two per cent in the next year,” he says.
Early this year a total of about 2.5m square metres of space was available in Germany, with a slight increase on January 2009.
The largest of these is the Hannover Messe, pictured, which boasts almost 500,000sqm of exhibition space. Although shows big enough to fill this space are few and far between, Kötter says the money they bring in justifies keeping the venue open. “They are very important for the total turnover of the Messes,” he says.
According to AUMA, the amount of capital investment has declined since 2008. Around €180m were invested in exhibition venues hosting international trade fairs, a decline of 18 per cent on the previous year.
