Therefore, when developing our decision tree in February, we put the question of whether a good visitor frequency could be expected on the same level as the feasibility in terms of approval.

On the one hand, the need for face-to-face meetings grows with each day of pandemic-related restrictions. On the other hand, many people feel uncomfortable with the idea of being out in the public in the current situation.   The analysis of the results of a visitor survey in March puts our decision on whether to hold Coiltech Germany in 2021 on a quantitatively sound basis.   The results of the survey reveal a great deal of uneasiness due to the current developments of the epidemic (3rd wave, uncertainty regarding vaccinations and testing strategy).

Home Office
Only a small proportion of the companies for which the respondents work are not currently applying a home office arrangement. More than half of the respondents currently work from home either full time or on an organised rota scheme at the direction of the company.

Business trips
About 1 in 6 companies currently deny employees business trips as a matter of principle, and in almost 60% of cases such trips must be specifically authorised. Only one in 10 companies does not currently apply Corona-specific regulations.

Larger companies apply stricter rules
Less than 10% of companies with more than 50 employees do not impose pandemic-related business travel restrictions. For smaller companies, this proportion is about one third.

In more than 2/3 of the companies, the home office regulations and travel restrictions apply "until further notice". In less than 10% of the businesses, the currently valid regulations end before or on 30 April.

It seems that corporate managements do not expect the situation to normalise in the foreseeable future.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents expect that their company either completely bans a trade fair attendance (approx. 37%) or only allows it in justified exceptional cases (also over 37%).

Only every fourth respondent expects their company to leave it up to each employee to use their own judgement when deciding whether to visit such an event.

However, the development since the end of February/beginning of March - catchwords: 3rd wave, the slow start of the "vaccination campaign" in many countries, uncertainty about side effects of a vaccine, lack of clarity about testing strategies) has left its mark.

The share of those who definitely do not want to visit the fair in May (15%) clearly exceeds that of those who definitely want to visit the event (just under 10%).

Slightly more than one-third said they would probably or probably not want to visit the fair. In view of these figures, only a very low visitor frequency can be expected for the planned date in May, at least as of the time of the survey (more information at the bottom of this page).

An interesting observation here: there seems to be a clear correlation between the size of the company in which someone works and the intention to visit a trade fair even under the given circumstances.

While more than one-fourth of the respondents from companies with fewer than 10 employees would "definitely" like to visit Coiltech Deutschland in May 2021, only just under 3% of those in companies with more than 5,000 employees intend to do so.

While without tests only about half of the respondents (47%) said they would "definitely" or "probably" want to visit the fair, this figure would be about 59% if a compulsory test were a prerequisite for entering the event.

That is a significant difference. Nevertheless, the unclear situation created by the covid pandemic is causing great uncertainty. This irritation cannot really be sufficiently dispelled even with tests.

For the next few weeks, it is not to be expected that a trade fair like Coiltech Deutschland will be able to exploit its visitor potential.