Around 170 international trade fairs and exhibitions are held in Germany every year, with over 180,000 exhibitors and 9 to 10 million visitors. Hardly any other marketing instrument emphasises personal contact as much as trade fairs. The exchange of personal data is therefore a key feature for the success of a trade fair.

German trade fair organisers are aware of the responsibility they have when processing personal data and take the protection of personal data very seriously. The protection of privacy is of the utmost importance to them. Compliance with the statutory provisions - such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation and the German Federal Data Protection Act - is therefore a matter of course for German trade fair organisers

All trade fair organisers are subject to strict monitoring by their company data protection officers and supervision by the data protection officers of the respective federal state. Data subjects can obtain information at any time about which of their data is stored by the trade fair organiser and for what purposes.

Why is there visitor registration at German trade fairs?

Exhibitors and visitors want to do business with each other at trade fairs. The organiser or venue owner provides the platform and corresponding services for this. The trade fair product is created in a triad between all participants. Exhibitors, visitors and organisers contribute equally to the success of a trade fair.

Exhibitors and visitors interact with each other. Visitors come to trade fairs to cultivate contacts. Exhibitors invite existing customers to the trade fair in order to maintain contacts. The trade fair thus temporarily becomes a reflection of real existing networks. The matchmaking aspect of trade fairs is becoming increasingly important. The prerequisite for this is that the right people on the exhibitor and visitor side come together at the trade fair. Exhibitor and visitor acquisition by the organiser is therefore of great importance. This requires knowledge of the necessary communication channels of the network participants (address, e-mail, telephone and fax).

Knowing the objectives of exhibitors and visitors enables the organiser to turn the trade fair into an attractive networking platform. As part of the visitor registration process, whether online in advance or on site, the organisers therefore try to find out the wishes and objectives of visitors as well as their industry background. Analysing the visitor registration provides valuable insights for the further development of the event for the better benefit of exhibitors and visitors.