Trade fair organiser Messe Frankfurt aims for €500 mn sales in 2022

“If the pandemic situation continues to improve, we have every confidence that we will be able to get fully started again in all areas in 2022. We are aiming for sales of over €500 million,” Wolfgang Marzin, president and chief executive officer of Messe Frankfurt, said during the corporate press conference.

 

“Our trade fairs, congresses and other events are central elements in the global economy and part of the economic lifeblood of Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region in particular. I firmly believe that, once the pandemic has passed, Messe Frankfurt will be one of the top players in the international trade fair sector,” Mayor Peter Feldmann, chairman of the Messe Frankfurt supervisory board added.

 

Since the pandemic broke out in March 2020, it has been scarcely possible to generate any sales at all in Germany, according to the group. Outside Germany, Messe Frankfurt was only able to hold events to a limited extent, for example in China. The pandemic brought the group’s decades of growth to an abrupt halt. Since then, Messe Frankfurt has focused on ensuring sufficient liquidity for the group, with a flexible but strict budget. 

 

“In spite of the strict cutbacks, the backing of our shareholders – the City of Frankfurt and the State of Hesse – means that, even in times like these, we are in a position to seize opportunities and invest counter-cyclically. With outside capital and a shareholder loan, Messe Frankfurt’s financial position has been secured for the current financial year and well into 2022,” Marzin added.

 

During the fiscal 2020, the group’s sales were approximately €257 million (2019: approx €736 million). With a consolidated net loss of around €122 million for the year, the result was far removed from the consolidated net profits of previous years (2019: approx €50 million). According to the group, current financial year will also see a decline in all its financial performance indicators.

 

“In spite of very difficult conditions, a total of 153 events were held over the past financial year – these included 46 trade fairs and exhibitions (2019: 155) with more than 33,000 (2019: 99,246) exhibiting companies and 1.2 million visitors,” according to the group.

 

“The digital working environment and long-distance interaction that have been our everyday reality for over a year have led to a certain digital fatigue among many people. In the overall context of our events, hybrid events will continue to play an important part and to add value for the sectors,” Detlef Braun, member of the executive board of Messe Frankfurt said in the conference.

 

“Changes will be of an evolutionary but lasting nature, with great advances being made in integrating valuable digital elements. Aspects relating to sustainability, growing environmental awareness and experience in digital interaction will lead to changes in behaviour – which, incidentally, was already happening before the coronavirus broke out,” Marzin said.

 

Messe Frankfurt is planning to hold events in digital, hybrid and in-person formats for the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year. In just a few days’ time, the premiere of Frankfurt Fashion Week will be held in digital form under the Frankfurt Fashion Week (FFW) Studio label. 

 

“Back in April, we opted – together with everyone else involved – to hold an exclusively digital event. With an expected international component of 80 per cent, a physical event would not have been feasible given that the pandemic situation was still volatile,” Braun added. “We developed a hybrid concept that contains a condensed physical exhibition while also allowing all participants to present themselves and network internationally by digital means.” 

 

The 70 or so guest events scheduled to take place in Frankfurt in the second half of the year – including trade fairs like Franchise Expo, White Label World Expo, the Frankfurt Book Fair and Food Ingredients & Health Ingredients Europe – will also be creating new momentum at the group’s Frankfurt base. 

 

“Even in challenging times, Messe Frankfurt continues to invest in its future and in expanding its portfolio, having added a total of 23 events worldwide since 2020. These include, for example, the Cross Border E-commerce Fair in Shenzhen – the first event of its kind in China – which was added during the current financial year. As well as this, the group will be stepping up its activities in the North Chinese city of Tianjin. Located in the centre of the Circum-Bohai-Sea Economic Zone, the city’s economic importance is on a par with that of the Greater Bay Area and Yangtze River Delta and it is set to be a new global trade fair hotspot,” Feldmann concluded in the release.