Leading building sector show BAU 2019 produced a record-breaking event at Messe München (11-16 January), with 200,000sqm of exhibition space taken at the show for the first time and 2,250 exhibitors (2017: 2,120) from 45 countries showcasing their products and solutions for the sector.
Organisers report visitor numbers reached 250,000, with the figures for visitors from outside Germany climbing to a new high of 85,000 (2017: 80,500), from over 150 countries.
BAU has good reason to claim to be the ‘World´s Leading Trade Fair for Architecture, Materials and Systems’.
Dieter Schäfer, Chairman of the Exhibitor Advisory Board of BAU, offered two main reasons for the show’s success: “First the quality of the visitors and the international spread reflected among them has further increased. And, second, the fact that Messe München set out the additional exhibition space from a visitor perspective and thereby further developed the unique world of themes covered by BAU.”
Research conducted by Gelszus revealed exhibitor satisfaction, with 97% of those surveyed rating the trade fair as “excellent to good”. On the question of how they saw the current economic situation in their sector, 94% said it was “excellent to good” (2017: 91%).
Neighbouring countries of Austria, Switzerland and Italy led the way as source countries for visitor numbers from abroad and there were big rises in the number of visitors from the Russian Federation (over 4,000 visitors this year) and China (over 3,500), which put these countries in fourth and fifth place respectively, their highest ranking so far.
Cathrine Lee, Deputy General Manager Africa/Europe at KIN LONG, sees this strong visitor interest from China as the result of BAU´s involvement in the region: “The successful Fenestration BAU China ensured that this year we were able to welcome considerably more visitors from Asia, in particular China, to our booth.”
And this year, for the first time, Israel made it into the top ten in the visitor table. Also a large joint stand from Israel was one of the attractions in the IT hall.
Renaming in Russia
Messe München has developed further its engagement in Russia. As of 8 November 2018, the Messe’s Russian subsidiary, CTT Expo LLC, adopted a new company name: Messe Muenchen Rus LLC. The company described the name change is an important milestone in the strategic business development in the country.
In 2015, Messe München made the largest acquisition in its company history at that time and expanded its portfolio with the world’s fifth-largest construction tradeshow, the Russian ‘Construction Equipment & Technologies / CTT’. The trade show now belongs to the bauma-Network and was renamed bauma CTT RUSSIA in 2017.
In the beginning, the organising subsidiary CTT Expo LLC was named after the trade show due to brand awareness; now the company name has been brought in line with Messe München’s corporate identity.
Simultaneously, the previous foreign representatives will be integrated into the subsidiary Messe Muenchen Rus LLC - Ms Larissa Kovalenko and her team.
Messe München ended 2018 with new peak figures and is looking at the coming year with optimism. It claims bauma in Munich in April will break all records and, in June, for the first time after 25 years, Europe’s biggest outdoor trade show again takes place in Munich under the new name OutDoor by ISPO.
In 2018, Messe München’s 201 events at home and abroad were attended by over 2.8m visitors and about 53,000 exhibitors, reported Klaus Dittrich, Chairman & CEO of Messe München. EXPO REAL registered 12% more visitors than in the previous year and set a new exhibitor record. Around 2,100 international companies, cities and regions presented at the property fair in Munich - about 5% more than in 2017.
There were double-digit growth rates at a few of Messe München’s events abroad. At bauma China, for example, the number of visitors increased by 12%.
At electronica China and productronica China, the number of exhibitors went up by 12% - and by 31% at electronica India and productronica India.
The Messe reports an increase too in the number of international exhibitors (up 8%) and visitors (up 5%) who travelled to Munich for the events at Messe München in the year 2018.
Altogether, half of all exhibitors now come from abroad, as well as 34% of visitors.
The company has operated in the black for nine years now, with Group sales in 2018 project to amount to €415.3m, of which €296m euros was generated in Munich. And, at the beginning of 2019, Messe München repaid a loan of around €520m granted to it in 1996 by its main shareholders the Free State of Bavaria and the City of Munich for the construction of the exhibition centre.
“For Messe München, this means that we now strengthen our equity capital and can be debt-free in 20 years”, says Dittrich. For the City of Munich and the Free State of Bavaria, this repayment is “a considerable inflow of funds” that goes to benefit the citizens.
