Trading On Tradition: Trade Fairs In Germany
Maybe your first experience of doing business the German way was at a trade fair. You might have been a visitor or you might have gone as an exhibitor yourself. The Germans in fact seem to have a monopoly on trade fairs, as you can see from the post called “Upcoming Trade Fairs in Germany” containing a list of most important or interesting shows for 2011/2012.
Germany is a federal country and each of its sixteen states likes to have stake in this particular market place. So you’re as likely to find a trade fair in Düsseldorf as you are in Hannover. Or it may be in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg or its northern rival Bremen. Frankfurt is almost synonymous with exhibition centres, and we haven’t even mentioned the capital city Berlin yet!
The fact that Germany is a distinctively regional country is one reason for the many different types of trade fair. Another factor in its favour is its shared borders with no less than nine other countries. Poland, for example, to the east. France to the west. Austria and Switzerland in the south connecting it with Italy and the Mediterranean countries. All roads lead to, no, not Berlin, but Munich and Stuttgart, Leipzig and Cologne. Just to add a few more international centres to the impressive list of places where you can do business in Germany.
Did we just say ‘all roads’ lead to these regional centres of commerce? Of course, the transport infrastructure of Germany is impressive, with so many regional airports boasting international flights and the railway network linking every area of the new post-1990 Germany, and connecting Germany itself to every part of the now substantially enlarged Europe. And to complete this model of smooth infrastructural mobility there are the ubiquitous over-ground and underground transport systems that get you rapidly from airport to city centre, from railway terminal out to the gleaming new trade fair centres, often sitting side by side with an airport.
Regional pride and rivalry, tried and tested infrastructures, fortuitous geographical location as a country to all points of the European compass, these are all very well, but do they guarantee successful trade fairs? Not necessarily. At least three further elements need to be added. The first is the attention paid to the numerous details of satisfying the exhibitor and the visitor alike. The provision of space, of information, of logistical support, of a coherent concept, of basic facilities for refreshment, is of a generally high standard.
The second is a natural wish to make people, especially from other countries, welcome, and an ingrained knowledge about their needs and how to satisfy them. We are reminded when saying this, or rather claiming this, of that pithy slogan dreamt up for the highly successful 2006 World Cup in Germany: “Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden”, meaning “We welcome all the world to feel at home as our guests.” Trade fairs need that magic ingredient called ‘atmosphere’ or ‘ambience’ to become real and touch more than our material or commercial senses.
Dr Vivien Hacker at 2011 Didacta Show in Stuttgart
Maybe then the third of the added elements is the real key: tradition. Despite all the traumas of its history, Germany has retrieved from its quite distant past many still vital remnants of customs, celebrations and festivities which bring communities together, which bind and allow for fruitful exchanges, social and commercial. The commonest word for ‘trade fair’ in German is ‘Messe’. And, if you will pardon the pun, you would be forgiven, for thinking of something vaguely religious. Yes, its root is actually ‘mass’, a religious service. In the early middle ages when a German church celebrated the day of a venerated person, such as a saint, and the day declared a festival or day of feasting, the special market that would be set up next to the church gradually took over the term ‘Messe’. ‘Mass’ and ‘market’ became interchangeable for such occasions.
The earliest documented reference to the Frankfurt trading ‘Messe’ was 1338. Now that’s what we really call ‘tradition’!