German trade shows suffer high turnover losses during COVID-19 crisis

BERLIN, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Turnover of trade fair, exhibition and congress organizers in Germany last year plummeted by 56 percent year-on-year due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic , the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Tuesday.

Most big events in Germany such as book fairs, the Hanover Messe or the International Motor Show (IAA) were cancelled or only held virtually in the year of 2020 due to the health crisis, leading to a "significant losses in turnover," Destatis noted.

"This was the sharpest decline in trade show business in decades, similar to most other countries," Joern Holtmeier, managing director of the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA), told Xinhua on Tuesday. "We expect trade show operations to restart on a larger scale in 2021, at the latest after the summer break."

According to AUMA, around 70 percent of planned trade shows were cancelled last year as overall trade fair revenues fell from 4.1 billion euros (4.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019 to only 1.2 billion euros. (1 euro=1.19 U.S. dollars)