Turnover at Koelnmesse exceeds 400 million euro for the first time

A record number of around 45,000 exhibiting companies from 120 countries and approximately 2.3 million visitors from 218 nations attended the 76 trade fairs and exhibitions worldwide in 2019. These figures are supplemented by around 125,000 visitors to congresses outside trade-fair periods. 51 events were hosted in Germany. Compared to the corresponding earlier events, domestic trade-fair revenues climbed on average by circa 6%.

"We set ourselves ambitious goals for 2019 which we have now delivered on. This is a new record for our company. We plan to defend the € 400 m mark beyond 2020, as well," says President and Chief Executive Officer Gerald Böse. "We can assert ourselves as one of the world's leading trade fair companies."

According to Böse, the sustained success is also a result of the company's long-term strategy with central point on internationalisation, digitalisation and location development. Looking forward, the organisation wants to focus particularly on its portfolio of strengthening existing and establishing new trade fairs. € 50 m already invested in digitalisation, with an additional € 50 m planned by 2024 Koelnmesse forged ahead strongly with digital transformation in 2019 and is investing around € 100 m in digitalisation in total; around € 50 m of this is scheduled for projects in 2020 through 2024. With "Business-Matchmaking-as-a-Service", Koelnmesse is extending the marketplace principle to the digital era. A new, responsive ticket shop has been launched for the first trade fairs, offering customers a rejuvenated and far more intuitive ticket-purchasing system.