Visiting Munich’s Travel and Leisure Trade Show - new insights and opportunities
Find out what we saw and learned while visiting the largest Bavarian fair of travel and leisure that was held in Munich from 14 til 18th February 2024 with over 1,000 exhibitors from 50 countries and attracting around 140,000 visitors.
A month has passed since we returned from Munich, still under impressions. Not only did we get to explore this interesting German city for the first time, but we also had the opportunity to participate once again as business visitors at the renowned f.re.e travel and leisure fair, that has been traditionally held in Munich since 1970.
Spread across eight halls, the fair offered visitors information of various travel-related themes, including:
Travel
Camping and Caravans
Cycling
Water Sports
Outdoor Activities
Fitness
Having discovered this expo at the previous Place2go tourism fair in Zagreb, we quickly started preparing for both Munich and Belgrade, the latter's tourism fair taking place just days after Munich's.
Why visit the fair?
It is one of the most visited consumer fairs in southern Germany and presents the world of travel and leisure.
A couple of good reasons why visit particularly this expo, but also expos in general:
Vast network of visitors and exhibitors
Business networking opportunities
Diverse sectors and niche Interests
Market exposure and promotion
Enhancing positive brand image and visibility
Stay ahead oftrends
Preparing for the fair
Encouraged by the positive reception to our offerings at the previous Place2go tourism fair in Zagreb, we decided to level up a bit our promotional materials.
We designed new business folders (aka presentation boxes) with improved brochures, new flyers, discount vouchers, and business cards. In addition to English and Croatian versions, we also created a German edition to facilitate communication with the hosts as well as traders from German speaking areas.
👉 You can find our brochure with projects in tourism and travel in online edition on our website.
👉 Curious about all the design projects in tourism and community engagement? Check out our blog summary.
Our goals and approach
Our primary goal was to connect with as many potential partners as possible in the three halls dedicated to travel.
Using the interactive hall plan, we created a list of booths and organizations to reach out to and created a three-day visit schedule. We purchased three-day standard and business visitor tickets. With five days in total, we aimed to dedicate three days to the fair and leave one day to exploring the city.
Unlike previous fairs, this one lacked a dedicated app or platform for scheduling meetings and networking. Instead, it relied on the good, old, traditional approach of come, meet, exchange (business cards).
After doing our standard "terrain scanning" approach upon entering a new environment, we decided to spend the first day in the hall with predominantly European exhibitors and the hall featuring intercontinental organizations. The second day was dedicated primarily to the German and Italian-speaking regions. We reserved the third day for visiting Croatian and Slovenian exhibitors.
Despite our initial guess that the third day would end quickly around lunchtime, we found ourselves being proactive until the fair closed in the evening hours.
Accommodation and transportation to the fair
We departed from Zagreb, the two of us, with Flixbus and with exceeded luggage weight, filled primarily brochures. We were fortunate to find a decent hotel, Hotel Westend, about a 10-minute walk from the main train station. It's safe to say the location was on spot, as we were surrounded by several of "our" restaurants and a few good local German breweries. Getting to the fair itself took about half an hour using a combination of public transportation (metro). The last stop was Messestadt Ost.
Three days and three halls of exhibitors
As we approached the fair's east entrance, you could feel both excitement and nervousness. At the entrance, the fair's main sponsor, Upper Bavaria, stood out, along with the Croatian National Tourist Board, with their promotional videos. We could say ours Croatian ones were quite popular, but there were also numerous interesting and quite large exhibitors from other countries.
Next came the breaking the ice with approaching exhibitiors, which is always a challenge, regardless of the number of previous meetings.
My attempt to start a conversation with the first exhibitors from Austria in German went awkward with tongue-twisting and fumbling. However, we later "got into it" and managed to introduce ourselves and communicate effectively. Moreover, with a colleague who knew some Italian, we covered at least four languages at the expo.
Since we didn't have our own stand and were instead walking around, our travel suitcase proved to be a lifesaver. We kept our business materials in it and also stored everything we got from other exhibitors.
After carrying a bag full of brochures for half a day on your shoulder, you start to feel like someone has hit you with a stick. Thankfully, adrenaline kept me going, so I survived the day. I cannot say that, however, for the weekend when I was half-asleep all day.
In terms of professional impressions, a good number of exhibitors had quite well-designed materials, although most could benefit from our assistance. A very small, almost irrelevant number stood out with some kind of premium design, while a smaller number seemed uncritical. It's important to consider that sometimes you shouldn't try to convince someone that your services will help them if they're already super satisfied with their presentation and a better image is absolutely not important to them.
Business partners from Europe and all over the world
Once we got into approaching exhibitors and introducing our services to potential clients, it became easier to relax and be more natural.
Over the three days, we had the opportunity to connect with exhibitors from Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, as well as countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Since most of our primary target collaborators were tourist boards, we spent most of our time getting to know them. The result was a considerable number of prospects that we collected fairly on our bus ride back to Zagreb.
We also connected with a fair number of travel agencies and local community units who liked our projects and were open to proposals.
Perhaps the most relaxed day was the third day at the large exhibition stand of the Croatian National Tourist Board, HGK, and numerous tourist boards and private agencies.
All in all, we had over a hundred conversations and collected a little over a hundred contacts interested in possible collaboration.
An interesting fact: During the fair, I carried my laptop in my backpack the entire time but never used it for presentations. Brochures and conversations did their own thing instead. 😎
And finally, a few lessons learned.
What did we learn while approaching exhibitors?
Reaching out to strangers and presenting your skills, only to face rejection from potential clients, can be a daunting and discouraging thought.
“They already have a Designer. We’ll just be annoying. Probably nothing will come of it... Let’s just go for the beer.”
I'm the first one to appreciate when someone approaches me directly with a project inquiry, allowing me to skip the "bothering" and "persuasion" phase.
However, it's not all that bad. :)
Here are four things I keep in mind that motivate me to approach exhibitors and that might help you overcome the uncomfortable feeling:
They might be looking for someone like us, but they don't know we're right under their nose.
They might not currently realize how my knowledge and experience can help their business. My job is to try to point this out and educate them.
I have a great idea for a project that would interest them. It's worth a shot.
If I don't reach out now, I'll regret the missed opportunity later.
We've often thought we'd be annoying and get rejected, but even with larger, more established exhibitors, we've found them interested in our proposals. Moreover, there have been numerous pleasant surprises.
People appreciate it when you approach them and briefly explain who you are and what you can do for them. You just have to give it a try.
Additional tips and tricks we've learned
ask the person behind the information desk whether they are the owner of the business, work in marketing and promotion, or hold the position of the project manager, and if they are not check if they could forward our box to this specific person and give us their contact
ask the person behind the information desk to write down their name
ask them for a permission to take a photo of them and the booth
Why?
People who do not work in field of marketing and promotion usually don’t work with us as external collaborators. And photos become quite useful. Because after the fair ends, even the same evening, having had numerous conversations, you no longer remember who is who. With the help of photos and names, you can immediately recall the situation, and when sending follow-up emails, you can mention who you spoke with and even attach a photo as a reminder.
Finally, I would like to thank our partner, Setoffset printing house, whose brochures and business folders helped us make an exceptionally professional impression on all exhibitors and who went the extra mile during our fair preparations.
Aufwiedersehen München. Belgrade, here we come!
After three days filled with meetings and adrenaline, we took advantage of the last day to explore the city. It was a full-day city tour accompanied by our friend who meticulously planned our route and prepared numerous interesting anecdotes. We finished our day with the evening visit to the Olympia Park and Tower.
Upon returning to Zagreb, we took a short break as we were already preparing up for the next international tourism fair in Belgrade in just three days.
But more about it in the next post.
Thanks for reading!
Photos: Grgo Petrov & Official photos from the trade show organizer free-muenchen.de)
