The MCH Group is one of Europe’s and the world’s largest tradeshow venue providers and organizers. The MCH Group tradeshow portfolio boasts about 100 own and guest events. Around 20,000 exhibitors participate in these tradeshows, which bring in about 2.3 million visitors from all over the world. At its Basel venue, the MCH Messe Basel operates Switzerland’s largest tradeshow venue, which offers 141,000 square meters of exhibition space. More than a dozen of the organization’s own tradeshows are hosted here each year. MCH Messe Basel organizes and implements each one of these events. Among them are for instance the global tradeshow for watches and jewelry – the BASELWORLD – as well as the art show Art Basel, the leading event of its kind in the world.
It is standard practice for tradeshow organizers to bill exhibitors for their booth spaces well ahead of the events and to require payment in advance. In the event of non-payments, exhibitors are usually not permitted to set up their booths, which is of course neither in the interest of the organizer nor good for the exhibitor. To prevent this, the Messe Basel verifies the creditworthiness of all new accounts by running credit checks under the D&B e-Portfolio. «We want to make sure that registered exhibitors have an actual presence at the show,» comments Olivier Sinler, Messe Basel Credit Manager. «D&B credit ratings give us the certainty that none of our exhibitors are no-shows at the tradeshow due to payment issues.»