Переведите текст. information forums for decision-makers by dr hermann kresse, chief executive officer of the german trade fair industry (auma) in 2001 developments in the trade fair and exhibition industry were dominated by far-reaching changes in the general economic and political conditions that were dictated by two major factors: firstly the economic slowdown in many countries, which was accompanied by a falloff in foreign trade growth, and secondly the terrorist attacks on september 11 in america and all the political and economic consequences. in view of these problems the performance of the german exhibition centers in. with a few exceptions, international fairs staged in germany continued the growth course in the previous years. 133 international fairs were attended by a total of 171,000 exhibitors, which is 3 per cent more than in the previous events.there was also no appreciable number of cancellations in the aftermath of september 11. growth in visitor attendance was fuelled primarily by the foreign exhibitors, whose number increased by a full 4 per cent to 84,000.this accounted for 49 per cent of the total, brining this figure within touching distance of the 50-per cent mark for the very first time.according to the current interim figures the leased exhibition 1, 5 per cent, to around 7, 2 million square meters. the unusually high growth achieved in the year 2000 cannot be taken as representative for comparison here. it was a once-off effect caused by the fact that several exhibition centres used new additional capacity for the first time that year, boosting both exhibitor and floor-space figures. visitor attendance totaled around 10.7 million last year. a precise comparison with the attendant figures for the preceding events is not possible however, because of the changes in the official definition for counting visitor attendance. the events of september 11 certainly had an effect on visitor attendance but the precise extent is impossible to quantify. according to auma estimates it probably resulted in a reduction of 2 to 3 per cent for the year as a whole. there has already been a marked reduction in the repercussions of this effect, however. the most important quality factor at german fairs continues to be their high internationalism on both the visitor and exhibitor sides. this applies both for the absolute figures for foreign partici pants and their world wide geographical distribution. in 2000 nearly one fifth of all foreign exhibitors came from asia and nearly 11 per cent from north and south america. overall, the non- european countries accounted for nearly a third of all foreign exhibitors. nearly one fifth of the 1.9 million foreign visitors also came from overseas. no other trade fair country anywhere in the world has figures approaching these dimensions. germany's exhibition centre operators are continuing their investments in foreign marketing, service quality and technical infrastructure. currently they are investing a total of around € 500 million per year in the expansion and modernization of their exhibition building alone, for example.
