Visits to German exhibitions are getting more and more important for buyers from Asia. In 2015, 230,000 potential clients travelled from South, East and Central Asia to Germany to inform themselves at exhibitions before preparing and making their final buying decisions. This was the highest number of visitors ever from that region, despite the fact that last year there were slightly fewer exhibitions scheduled and, even in 2015, the international security situation was already somewhat tense. The main countries in Asia from which the visitors came were the People's Republic of China with about 75,000 visitors, followed by India (38,000), Japan (28,000) and the Republic of Korea (25,000). This is what an analysis by AUMA – the Association of the German Exhibition Industry, released in summer 2016, shows.
Visitors from North America also come in large numbers to exhibitions in Germany: over 55,000 arrived from the USA in 2015, and about 17,000 from Canada. German exhibitions also made a big impact in the Middle East, attracting a total of 90,000 visitors, of who m 25,000 came from Israel and about 12,000 from each of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Attendance from Latin America was down slightly, with about 60,000 visitors, no doubt partly due to the economic problems in some of the bigger countries there.
In total, about 530.000 visitors came from countries outside Europe. The majority of visitors to German exhibitions from abroad continue to come from the EU and other European countries, with visitors interesting in Germany's big public exhibitions, while the visitors from overseas are almost exclusively trade visitors. Altogether, about 1.65 million visitors came from the EU and 360,000 from other European countries. The main visitor countries in 2015 were the Netherlands (225,000), followed by Italy (175,000), Austria (165,000), France and Switzerland (140,000 each), the UK (135,000) and Belgium (125,000).
The total number of international visitors reached 2,55 m, about 26% of all visitors to international and national exhibitions in Germany.
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