Trade fair industry: Germany remains at the top

When it comes to trade fairs, Germany remains the benchmark. Especially among foreign visitors, the country achieves a record high with 2.46 million visitors.

Germany asserts itself as the world's leading trade fair location. The internationality of exhibitors and visitors at the 176 national and international trade fairs in Germany, at 34 percent, is a particularly high figure. No other trade fair country attracts a comparable number of guests from abroad. Last year, this figure was 33 percent. This was confirmed by recent surveys conducted by the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA) at the annual industry meeting in Berlin. At the same time, Europe remains the center of the global trade fair industry, according to a recent report by the International Association of the Trade Fair Industry (UFI): More than 100 million people from Europe and around the world visited trade fairs on the continent in 2024 – equivalent to one-third of all trade fair visitors worldwide.

China sends the most exhibitors

Specifically, most trade fair visitors in Germany recently came from the Netherlands (211,000), Italy (176,000), Austria (152,000), Switzerland (148,000), and China (120,000). Germany also remains the leader in terms of exhibitors at national and international trade fairs between Husum and Friedrichshafen, Essen, and Leipzig: A total of 107,370 foreign companies exhibited in Germany last year. The leading exhibitor nation was China (20,630 companies), followed at some distance by Italy (10,690), the Netherlands (around 5,020), Turkey (4,920), and France (4,820).

A total of 322 trade fairs took place in 2024, including 176 international and national, 138 regional, and eight new events. All key figures show clear growth compared to the respective previous events: The 70 trade fair venues in Germany provided a platform for more than 204,000 exhibiting companies (+9.2 percent). Over 11.7 million visitors were counted (+3.2 percent). Stand space also increased significantly to almost 7.2 million square meters (+7.2 percent). These positive signs are remarkable because, in the first quarter, which was a trade fair-heavy quarter, more than 50 events were affected by strikes in rail transport, local public transport, and at airports. According to AUMA estimates, this resulted in up to 250,000 fewer visitors – an average decline of eleven percent.

New events and investments

More than 310 trade fairs will take place in Germany in 2025, including more than a dozen new events on topics such as healthcare, energy, and construction. German trade fair centers plan extensive investments in the modernization and further development of their infrastructures by 2029. According to AUMA estimates, more than 770 million euros will be invested in this nationwide.

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