Werner M. Dornscheidt
CEO of Messe Düsseldorf GmbH
The year 2009 was a year full of challenges – both for the world economy and for the German economy. The scale of the international economic crisis had been hardly foreseeable. The decline in world trade, the collapse of capital expenditure on equipment and machinery, and the historically unique decrease in the demand for German exports left their mark on all sectors of the economy. And that also applies to the German trade fair industry. AUMA, German industry’s exhibition and trade fair committee, registered sharp downturns in all the important indicators: in numbers of exhibitors and visitors, and in terms of exhibition space rented out.
Messe Düsseldorf geared its operations to these trends at an early stage. We calculated very carefully, made extremely cost-conscious plans, and used 2009, one with a reduced number of events due to trade fair cycles, for capital investment in Düsseldorf as a trade fair venue. Hall 5 was modernized and the range of events was extended so as to enable the company to cater for the changed customer needs even more accurately. We have now strengthened the international presence of the Messe Düsseldorf brand and, as a result, sharpened the company’s profile as a leading trade fair organizer with worldwide operations.
With the help of such far-sighted management activities we succeeded in cushioning the company against the negative effects of the worldwide recession. If 2009 nevertheless saw a marked decline in sales for Messe Düsseldorf, this was very largely attributable to the absence, for rotational reasons, of many of the large international key fairs such as the “K” plastics trade fair or “drupa”, which are only held every three or four years. In fact, most of the trade fairs staged in Düsseldorf were able to hold their ground with increased numbers of exhibitors and visitors, as the clearly leading marketplaces for their respective sectors.
The high quality standard and the international significance of the Messe Düsseldorf events are manifest, inter alia, in the fact that the percentage of foreign companies that presented their products in Düsseldorf has now risen considerably to a figure of 61 percent (previous year: 56 percent). At MEDICA and GDS, the percentages of international exhibitors and visitors even reached peak figures.
Last year, we used the reduction in the number of selforganized events to increase the availability of our capacities for guest events and for renting out trade fair facilities. Altogether, the 14 self-organized and 18 guest events were utilized by 21,961 exhibitors and 1.1 million visitors from all over the world. We owe this success not least to the 1,411 employees of the Messe Düsseldorf Group, whose great dedication moves both people and markets in so many major branches of industry. We offer them our thanks and appreciation. But we also have to thank our customers both from home and abroad, who actually give the trade fair venue of Düsseldorf its internationally outstanding significance.
Altogether, primarily on account of the reduced number of large, internationally significant key fairs, Group sales interdeclined in 2009, compared to the peak year of 2008, as planned but also due to the recession, by just under 50% to € 255.5 million. The result, amounting to a loss for the year of a good € 19 million, was also on a par with this. Nevertheless, Messe Düsseldorf is, at the core, well-placed and very sound financially. For instance, the company’s 45.4 percent equity ratio is at the same level as in 1992.
In 2009 the company’s domestic and foreign subsidiaries were also affected by the repercussions of the financial and economic crisis. However, they were able to hold their ground with numerous events in the emerging economic regions of China, India and the CIS states. Due to the crisis, however, they too had to cope with a decline in the numbers of exhibitors and visitors attending their fairs.
In the meantime, there are more and more signs that the world economy is returning to the path of growth – albeit quite slow growth. But we are all aware of the fact that the crisis is not yet over. For the events already organized in 2010 we have attained and in some cases surpassed the targets set. That gives us a legitimate reason for assuming that, in the year as a whole, we cannot only achieve an increase in sales but end up ever so slightly in the black in terms of profitability.
That means that Messe Düsseldorf is staying on course in the business of getting people to talk to one another and moving markets. And indeed that applies both to the trade fair site of Düsseldorf and to the other regions of the world that are strong in terms of industry. The surtrade fair is a major promoter of the region’s prosperity. With great technical capabilities, it makes every effort to give companies access to new markets and to help their customers to discover new solutions and innovations. That is what we are working on – explicitly and with great determination.
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