Growth market business trips
At EUR 54.1 billion, the turnover generated by the over eight million business travellers exceeded the total holiday expenditure of Germans last year.
Companies and the public sector in Germany spend over EUR 120 billion a year on professional mobility. Comparison with the tourism business underlines the importance of this travel segment. There is little doubt, travel is an important part of business life. Expanding business relations, especially within Europe, make high mobility of business travellers an ever growing necessity - and therefore also a topic for trade fairs. Messe Essen wanted to take advantage of it with Bizzavia and set up the world's first exhibition forum dealing with business flying. But the focus on just flying was too narrow and Bizzavia failed to materialise both in 2003 and 2004 and was finally postponed indefinitely. In neighbouring Düsseldorf, Centaur Exhibitions, London, was more successful. The organiser launched the Business Travel Show there last year, the trade fair dealing with business trips. It is the fourth annual business travel fair that Centaur Exhibitions stages alongside London, Birmingham and Hong Kong. After all, businesses spend considerable amounts on business travel - and there are often simple ways of cutting travel costs or streamlining a company's travel management. And this is the approach taken by the Business Travel Show with its exhibition and extensive accompanying programme: its intention is to help everyone who books business trips or plans or organises conventions to get to know more efficient booking methods, find the best offers for a service, lower the costs and, of course, meet business trip vendors - both established businesses and newcomers. The exhibitors at the show, which was this year held in Düsseldorf from September 6 to 8, with exhibitors up 54 % to 100, are airlines, business charter companies and airports, railway companies and rail travel agencies, car hire companies, and limousine/chauffeur services, hotels, hotel chains, serviced apartments, credit card companies, suppliers of reservation systems, passport and visa services, et cetera. Next year, Messe Stuttgart is looking to break into this interesting market with its new trade fair Mobility & Business. To be held from May 17 to 19, 2006, it will make its début as an international trade fair for business travel, car fleets and mobile communication. According to Messe Stuttgart, that will then cover the complete spectrum of the business travel sector for the first time in Germany. The types of business exhibited include travel offers and how they are processed, online booking systems, card companies, aviation, railways and fleet services. Other segments are mobile communication and services of the event, incentive, insurance and financing sector. The exhibition in Stuttgart will also have an accompanying programme. The big topics are cost reduction and process.
m+a report Nr.6 / 2005 vom 23.09.2005
m+a report vom 23. September 2005