Impressive restart of the trade fair in China / Digital complement with R+T Asia Connect
With its first physical event after the pandemic, R+T Asia enjoyed a successful restart for the sun protection and door/gate industries in Asia from 24 to 26 March 2021. The trade fair in 2021 proved to be a total success with more than 42,000 visitors, 700 exhibitors on a gross exhibition area of 68,000 square metres, over 20 on-site educational and networking events, and the additional hybrid offering in R+T Asia Connect. “The outstanding response by every participant is confirmation of the market position of R+T Asia in the sun protection and door/gate industries – even after a one-year break for the trade fair due to the pandemic. It is becoming abundantly clear that companies are very willing to ramp up their business in 2021,” said Manuela Keller, Senior Project Manager for the R+T Alliance at Messe Stuttgart.
Successful digital extension
For visitors who were unable to travel to China this year, R+T Asia organised matchmaking sessions between on-site exhibitors and dozens of global buyers. Almost 150 video sessions arranged in advance were held in the special Matchmaking Area to enable the participants to learn more about one another and conduct condensed business discussions in speed dating formats that worked well despite the geographical distances and time zones.
The trade fair also saw the première of the new Virtual Booth Tour in which online selected stands at R+T Asia 2021 could be visited virtually. The webcasts were streamed live on Twitter. The exhibitors had the opportunity to present their stands just like in a personal discussion while online visitors learnt more about the exhibitors’ new products. The atmosphere of a trade fair therefore became tangible. The live webcasts are still available on the official Twitter channel @RTAsiaFair and every video session has already achieved more than 300,000 hits.
R+T Asia Connect, the first online meeting point for the sun protection and door/gate industries in Asia, was created shortly before the start of the trade fair and is arousing great international interest with more than 115,000 accesses at present. Every exhibitor who registered under www.rtasiaconnect.net had the opportunity, in addition to a physical presence at the trade fair, to present their exhibits beforehand digitally and make direct contact with buyers from all over the world. The campaign relating to R+T Asia Connect will be continued and – looking forward to 2022 – will feature matchmaking initiatives and innovations in the industry and from the Asian market.
Trade fair to be held in May in 2022
R+T Asia and HD+ Asia were in good specialist company: DOMOTEX Asia/CHINAFLOOR 2021, cadex, DDE 2021, BIC 2021, IPD 2021 Asia and WORKSPACE 2021 were staged concurrently and brought together Chinese property developers, building entrepreneurs and (interior) architects. The successful cooperation between these events for the building and construction material industries, including smart homes and smart building systems, home textiles and trends in architecture, will be continued for R+T Asia 2022.
R+T Asia 2022 will be held at the National Exhibition and Convention Centre (NECC), the largest trade fair complex in Shanghai, from 25 to 27 May 2022. The NECC trade fair complex is located right next door to Shanghai-Hongqiao International Airport and the Hongqiao transport hub with very good connections to the underground railway, high-speed trains and buses.
A later date for the trade fair in 2022 was chosen because the next Winter Olympics are being held in Peking in February 2022. This time stagger will ensure that R+T Asia runs smoothly for exhibitors and visitors.
