The trade fair construction business in Switzerland has been confronted with a dramatic decline in economic activity not only since Covid, caused by exploding costs, the legal requirements for sustainable production, but above all because of an actual trade fair death.

by Urs Seiler || 18. August 2025

Nothing signals the dramatic decline in the trade fair business in Switzerland more clearly than the decline in the overall economic effects.

As recently as 2006, the study by Basel Economics BAK extrapolated that the MCH Group’s turnover of CHF 400 million would have indirect additional effects for the beneficiaries of the trade fair business, among them, above all, the trade fair construction industry. According to the study, direct and indirect economic effects then amounted to just under 4 billion Swiss francs, 3.931 billion Swiss francs to be exact. The figure of almost four billion was probably already somewhat exaggerated at that time. But it signalled a Swiss trade fair industry at its peak. In 2006, every franc of turnover generated by the MCH Group thus turned into 10 francs in macroeconomic effects.

Following the end of the world’s leading trade fairs Baselworld and the Geneva International Motor Show, the abandonment of the well-known public fairs Muba in Basel, Züspa in Zurich and the Comptoir Suisse in Lausanne, and the disappearance of trade fairs such as Prodex in Basel, the MCH Group’s latest value creation study, which was published on 30 October 2024, results in the following estimate:

According to the current  BAK study, every franc generated by the MCH Group generates an additional 4.5 francs for other sectors, i.e. a total value added of direct and indirect income totalling 5.5 times the MCH Group’s annual net revenue in Switzerland. In 2023, this amounted to 372.9 million francs. Deducting estimated foreign revenues of one third, domestic revenue at the Basel and Zurich locations amounted to CHF 248.6 million, multiplied by a factor of 5.5, resulting in total value added (direct and indirect effects) of CHF 1.367 billion in Switzerland. This represents only 34% of the total value added in 2006. One could conclude from this that the turnover of trade fair construction companies in Switzerland has also fallen to 34 percent compared to 2006.

The declining trade fair industry in Switzerland has affected the trade fair construction industry so dramatically that it is in the most difficult situation since its meteoric rise in the 1990s. Today, one has to speak of a crisis when many companies consider giving up their business for the first time. This is a new situation; trade fair construction companies in Switzerland are even talking about a “trade fair death” that would have started even before Corona.

Diversification as a liberating blow: From “digital” to live communication

The owner of a long-established trade fair construction company told me 10 years ago that his Swiss company would not have survived without his branch in Germany. At the trade fair construction talk on 8 May 2024, there was also talk of the fact that a company that only operates in Switzerland can no longer survive on trade fair construction alone. For other Swiss stand builders, trade fair appearances abroad by their Swiss exhibitor customers, namely in Germany as a trade fair country, save their business.

At the trade fair construction talk, no one said more clearly where this is leading than Andreas Messerli, Chairman of the Board of Directors of what is now the largest trade fair construction and live communication group, the Messerli Group: “We have positioned ourselves as live communication specialists, not least to pick up trade fair budgets.” At various trade fair construction talks, it was held that trade fair construction companies can save their company thanks to other forms of events than trade fairs.

The Swiss trend from trade fair construction to live communication is also reflected in the recent Event Trend Study of the Swiss LiveCom Association Expo Event (page 127): “In the longer term, budgets will migrate from classic advertising not only to the digital sector, but also to the live sector.” The study goes on to say: “At Expo Event, the proportion of corporate events/employee events has increased sharply”. It grew by 35 percent.

Internationalisation as an opportunity

In addition to diversification in live communication, internationalisation is a way out of the shrinking Swiss market, even for traditional small and medium-sized enterprises. It seems to be increasingly becoming a way out of the declining trade fair business in Switzerland.

The Event Trend Study quotes: “The majority of Expo Event respondents had a turnover of over two million francs in 2022. Half of the turnover was realised abroad.

The Event Trend study also sees internationalisation as a solution in the search for personnel, among other things: “Expo Event members get support from abroad in the field of transport and personnel/freelance – two areas that have grown strongly” it says.

The livecom alliance’s “European Industry Survey 2025” cites that 24 percent of the turnover of internationally active companies comes from outside Europe and that such companies expect stronger growth in customer budgets than companies that operate exclusively domestically. However, the study admits that the path to internationalisation is not without obstacles. And the strong Swiss franc is an additional hurdle for entering international business.

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