NürnbergConvention is the name of the new label. Cooperating under this umbrella brand will be NürnbergMesse, NürnbergConvention Center and the Congress- und Tourismuszentrale Nürnberg (CTZ). The chief objective is the best possible national and international promotion for Nuremberg as an ideal conference, meetings and events venue.
In recent years “NürnbergConventionCenterhas developed a hugely magnetic effect”, Roland Fleck insists. NürnbergMesse’s managing director points with satisfaction to the growth in revenues from EUR 5.4 million to 11 million. Even so, the group is now aiming for further substantial improvement in its national and international strategic positioning under the umbrella brand NürnbergConvention. Going forward, exhibition company NürnbergMesse,NürnbergConventionCenterand the CTZ convention and tourist board will cooperate under this label. NürnbergConvention will enable better joint presentation at such important industry exhibitions as IMEX and the EIBTM, during assemblies of associations like the GCB, the EVVC and ICCA as well as at MPI functions, is Fleck’s view of the future.
NürnbergConvention Center will also form part of the new umbrella brand, because “first comes the destination, then the venue”, is how Sabina Linke, marketing manager NürnbergMesse and NürnbergConvention, describes customer acquisition and the key reason behind the new umbrella brand strategy. “The city and exhibition centre are now jointly representing the destination and venue in the MICE market to convince meeting planners of the appeal of the Franconian city that can boast an imperial castle as its landmark. The partners aim to plough a total of EUR 2 million into marketing activities over the coming five years with the long-term goal of doubling revenues.
It is not only the direct earnings that make meetings business attractive for a destination that was once a seat of the German emperors and now hosts the most popular Christmas market in Europe; even more important are the incremental economic benefits from hotel reservations, taxi rides, airline tickets and the sums spent in boutiques, restaurants and the like. The “socioeconomic effects generated by events added up at last count to EUR 480 million for the metropolitan region, EUR 296 million of which was spent inNuremberg,” Roland Fleck calculates.
The NürnbergMesse Group closed fiscal 2011 on roughly twenty percent higher revenues in excess of EUR 165 million, the second best performance since its establishment. The share of international attendees jumped 28 percent and the proportion of international exhibitors 17 percent.
What “international conference goers find so wonderful about Nuremberg,” CTZ general manager Yvonne Coulin explains, “ is the mediaeval imperial castle, the Old Town completely encircled by the city walls complete with fortified towers, the impressive burgher houses and the crooked, cobbled alleyways.”
When organising an event, meeting planners can take advantage of NürnbergConvention Bureau’s support. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a guided tour of the city, a suitable venue for a social function in the evening or hotel accommodation,” Coulin says of the service spectrum. “From conference hotels toNürnbergConventionCenterwe have a wide range of event venues,” Sabina Linke adds. Besides which, meeting planners can choose from “a huge selection of venues such as the Faber-Castell castle, the German National Museum, the State Museum of Art and Design – and, of course, the Imperial Castle.”
The only shortcomings that remain, so a study by the Europäisches Institut für TagungsWirtschaft (EITW) atHarzUniversityhas revealed, are for events with 500 to 1,000 participants. “That’s because the exhibition company’s NürnbergConvention Center (CCN) is designed primarily for events with more than 1,000 attendees,” Fleck explains. Small and medium-sized functions with smaller audiences cannot really be held there economically.
As a result, according to the study dating from April 2011, the market share for events of this size inNurembergis roughly a quarter less than the German average. “Owing to this gap, an estimated 330 events with 110,000 participants are lost from the organisers interviewed,” says Michael-Thaddäus Schreiber from the EITW. One in every two requests for a proposal inNuremberg, the EITW’s boss summarizes, culminates in a rejection, and in most cases the reason given is capacities.
Some time ago it would still have been possible to hold such meetings in the convention centre. But the steady growth in international trade fairs and the pull of the CCN for big-ticket events have left less and less room in full-to-bursting calendars at NürnbergMesse and the CCN. DM
