Amsterdam RAI managed to achieve a net turnover of € 108.2 million during the crisis year of 2009, 12.4% lower than the € 123.5 million in 2008. Leaving aside the effect of the cancelled TERTS exhibition, this result represents a fall in turnover of only 4.7 percent. Thanks to a range of timely measures taken by Amsterdam RAI, the costs were reduced by eight percent to € 103.8 million in 2009. This gave the RAI a positive operating profit of € 4.4 million (2008: € 10,9 million). After the deduction of interest charges and taxes, the Amsterdam exhibition and conference centre’s net profits were calculated at € 199,000 (2008: € 5.3 million).
A total of 12 self-organised events and 561 events organised by third parties were held in the RAI complex during 2009, attracting a total of 1.8 million visitors (the same number as in the comparable exhibition year 2007). Two iconic RAI events celebrated milestones: The 50th edition of the equestrian event Jumping Amsterdam and the 25th edition of Art Amsterdam. In 2009 Amsterdam RAI employed around 500 full-time staff and also engaged a large number of temps during events.
Resilience
The fact that Amsterdam RAI succeeded in booking positive results despite the difficult economic conditions of 2009 underlines the financial flexibility and commercial vitality of the company. In addition to implementing immediate and invasive cost measures in October 2008, the global downturn stimulated management and employees to develop alternative exhibition concepts. The main example is AutoRAI 2009, the continuity of which was ensured by reducing costs for exhibitors by 70 percent. Amsterdam RAI also succeeded in landing several new events in 2009 despite the crisis.
Elicium opened, investment programme concluded
Amsterdam RAI’s distinctive new Elicium building was officially opened by His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange in September 2009. This concluded an extensive multi-year investment programme of 111 million euros aimed at upgrading the RAI. Thanks to the extra conference and meeting rooms in the Elicium, including the possibility of using so-called flexi-offices, Amsterdam RAI can rightly call itself ‘the largest conference centre in Europe’ in terms of the number of rooms. With this proposition, the RAI hopes to become an even more important player in the market for large international multi-day events.
Good prospects
For 2010 and subsequent years Amsterdam RAI will build on a number of successful, international exhibition titles, its well-stocked order portfolio of events organised by third parties and the already proven attraction of the RAI Elicium.
Three major international exhibitions are planned for 2010, namely Intertraffic, ISSA/INTERCLEAN and METS. The RAI will also serve as the platform for a large number of events and exhibitions organised by external parties, including the annual financial industry convention Sibos organised by SWIFT, the 17th World Congress on Information Technology (the world’s most important ICT conference), and Powergen, a three-day exhibition and conference for the European energy sector.
As a result, Amsterdam RAI expects the turnover and results for 2010 to be considerably higher than those seen in 2009. The future prospects are therefore once again in line with the multi-year planning as drawn up before the financial crisis began.
