On Saturday, February 8, 2025, the 26th Halle Tourism Fair was held at the MZ Publishing House. My wife noticed this event on Facebook and suggested that I attend the event. As a tourism expert with 32 years of experience, I was very interested in comparing tourism fairs in different cities that I had the honor of visiting, participating in, and sometimes even organizing. Of course, it makes no sense to compare such powerful mega-events as ITB in Berlin or UITT in Kyiv with the Halle Tourism Fair.
On September 27, 2018, as the head of the Western Cherkasy Region Tourism Cluster, I organized a tourism fair in the Ukrainian city of Uman. So a similar event in Halle can be compared with it. Both fairs were focused on local tourists. The significance of Halle and Uman in their countries is also approximately the same. Another coincidence is the duration of the events is only one day. So, I want to say that among the pluses in favor of Halle we have: the local tourist fair was better equipped technically, three presentation halls worked continuously. But, unlike Uman, the entrance was paid there (3 euros per person), the number of exhibitors was significantly smaller than the Uman analogue, the quality of service and welcoming were also worse than at the fair in Ukraine.
The main target audience of the fair in Halle is local pensioners, who made up 85% of the total number of visitors. A free lottery, interesting presentations of tourist products from various companies, and wine tasting were organized for them. More than 150 destinations were advertised, mostly abroad.
Once again, I want to emphasize the quality of service and the manner of communication of the exhibitors. I will say right away that I have no complaints about the organizers themselves. They smiled, were the first to contact me and helped if any questions arose.
At the same time, some of the exhibitors demonstrated true German quality of service and welcoming, which, in my opinion, does not exist in nature. After hearing the accent and, probably, some mistakes, the representative of the winery from the Rheinland-Pfalz region closed in and did not notice us. My wife and I speak German as the sixth language we speak and it is not perfect. Although we are true wine connoisseurs. The winemaker was happy to communicate with all the other visitors, and we had to practically catch her by the sleeve. The same was true at the ADAC stand. The question arises for the organizers – why invite winemakers from a city located 450 km from Halle, if the wonderful wine-growing region of Saale-Unstrut is nearby? Especially since the wines in our region are tastier than in Rheinland-Pfalz.
As far as I remember, at the tourist fair in Uman there were visitors from other countries who did not speak Ukrainian or, at least, Russian. Our team helped the exhibitors communicate with foreigners in English. If we were all busy, the exhibitors themselves very kindly tried to explain to the guests about their goods and services. And everyone was very satisfied.
So, I’ll sum it up. The level of technical equipment, stands and advertising products at the Halle tourism fair were at a very high level. Free parking was also a big plus. The representatives of the organizers did an excellent job and helped visitors. As for some exhibitors, they, like most of their compatriots, fall into a stupor when they have to communicate with foreigners. At the same time, it doesn’t matter whether they are employees of businesses from the east of Germany or from the territory of its western part. We already have many facts that at UNESCO World Heritage sites none of the employees speak a language other than German. Moreover, in some hotels, reception staff are forbidden to speak any language other than German. We hope that over time the situation will begin to improve.
(c) Oleksandr Fainin
