How we work
We show hotels near the eleven major exhibition centres in Germany and four abroad, sorted by straight-line distance to the entrance, and the dates of the major trade fairs held there. This page explains where the information comes from, how up to date it is and what we don't know.
Where the hotels come from
Regularly, roughly every one to two weeks, our server asks Google's hotel search for hotels near each exhibition centre – using a query we tested beforehand, such as “Hotels Messe Düsseldorf” or “Hotels Koelnmesse”. We read the first two pages of results, up to 36 properties, and keep only hotels with a known location within a set radius of the entrance. We don't show holiday flats or private rooms. The queries and radii:
- Frankfurt: “Hotels Frankfurt am Main Messe”, radius 5 km
- Düsseldorf: “Hotels Messe Düsseldorf”, radius 8 km
- Cologne: “Hotels Koelnmesse”, radius 5 km
- Hannover: “Hotels Messe Hannover”, radius 10 km
- Munich: “Hotels Messe München”, radius 10 km
- Berlin: “Hotels Berlin Westend”, radius 5 km
- Nuremberg: “Hotels NürnbergMesse”, radius 6 km
- Stuttgart: “Hotels Messe Stuttgart”, radius 8 km
- Hamburg: “Hotels Hamburg Messe”, radius 5 km
- Leipzig: “Hotels Messe Leipzig”, radius 8 km
- Essen: “Hotels Essen Rüttenscheid”, radius 5 km
- Barcelona: “Hotels Fira Gran Via Barcelona”, radius 3 km
- Milan: “Hotels Fiera Milano Rho”, radius 5 km
- Paris: “Hotels Villepinte”, radius 5 km
- Amsterdam: “Hotels RAI Amsterdam”, radius 4 km
The radius is chosen to cover the hotels at the venue and the city centre: Messe München is in Riem, about nine kilometres as the crow flies from Marienplatz; Messe Stuttgart is at the airport, about ten kilometres from Stuttgart city centre. Where a venue is on the edge of town, hotels in neighbouring places count too – for example in Laatzen near Hannover or in Filderstadt near Stuttgart.
How we measure the distance
The distance is the straight line from the hotel's location (as Google gives it) to an entrance of the venue – the walk is always longer. As the entrance we take the one at the most important rail link, or the one OpenStreetMap lists as the main entrance; abroad, where OpenStreetMap lists no named main entrance, the station at the venue (Barcelona, Milan, Paris). The location of the entrances comes from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL licence), retrieved on 11 October 2026:
- Messe Frankfurt: City entrance
- Messe Düsseldorf: North entrance
- Koelnmesse: South entrance
- Hannover Exhibition Grounds: West 1 entrance
- Messe München: West entrance
- Messe Berlin: North entrance
- NürnbergMesse: Central entrance
- Messe Stuttgart: East entrance
- Hamburg Messe: Central entrance
- Leipziger Messe: Glass Hall
- Messe Essen: East entrance
- Fira Barcelona Gran Via: Europa | Fira station
- Fiera Milano (Rho): Rho Fieramilano station
- Paris Nord Villepinte: Parc des Expositions station
- RAI Amsterdam: Main entrance
Getting there and alternative bases
Stops, stations and airports and their locations come from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL licence), retrieved on 11 October 2026; the distance is again a straight line – to an airport, to the middle of the airport site, which is why it is rounded to whole kilometres. We only give lines, journey times and tickets where an official page does: the organiser, the transport association or the transport operator. Every piece of information links to that page and states the day we checked it. We don't run our own timetable queries.
Alternative bases are neighbouring towns from whose station, according to such a source, there is a connection to the venue. We search for their hotels the same way as for those at the venue – only sorted by straight-line distance to the station, because if you stay further out, you want to be close to the train. Timetables change, next at the timetable change on 13 December 2026; check the connection before you travel.
Only hotels our partners offer
For every hotel we check in Google's hotel search whether one of our partners offers it – for a sample trip: two nights, two adults, arriving four weeks after the query. Only then is it listed here, at most twelve per venue. If you book through our link, we receive a commission; your price stays the same. During the fair, a hotel that was available for the sample trip may be fully booked.
Prices for the fair days
We don't store prices – they change every day, and especially during trade fairs. “Prices for your dates” on each hotel opens our hotel search with exactly that hotel: there our server asks Google's hotel search for the offers for that hotel and your dates and shows our partners' offers – the total price including taxes and fees, as Google gives it. The provider's price applies.
The dates of a trade fair are filled in: check-in the day before the first day of the fair, check-out on the last day, at most 4 nights, one person – change the dates as you need. On a city page it is the next trade fair at the venue, on a trade fair's page its own dates. Google's hotel search gives no prices more than 330 days ahead; the page then says from when there will be some.
Searching for a trade fair
If you pick a trade fair in the search at the top of the home page, it fills in check-in and check-out by the same rule and searches for hotels near the venue – with the query we measured for the venue (below), without the word “Hotels”: for example “Messe Düsseldorf” or, for Berlin, the district “Westend”. If you pick a trade fair city, your dates stay as they are. The hotel search then orders its results as described under How we sort – not by straight-line distance.
The trade fair premium
Under each hotel there is “Check the trade fair premium”. One tap, and our server asks Google's hotel search about two date ranges: the nights of the fair (as filled in for “Prices for your dates”) and the same weekdays one week later. If there is another major trade fair at the venue in our calendar then, we take two weeks later, otherwise one or two weeks earlier – never the days between Christmas and New Year (23 December to 1 January), never carnival in Cologne and Düsseldorf (11 November and the days from Weiberfastnacht to Veilchendienstag), never Oktoberfest in Munich. We compare the lowest total price Google gives for the hotel – across all providers, including taxes and fees, for one person. From that we work out the ratio: “4.3 times the price” means the fair nights currently cost 4.3 times as much as the comparison nights.
Why not our partners' price? During major trade fairs, rooms on booking sites are often the first to go – measured on 11 October 2026, a hotel near Messe Düsseldorf had no offer from our partners left for the MEDICA nights, but other providers did. The premium would then be missing just when it is highest. Bookable offers from our partners are still under “Prices for your dates”.
We store neither the prices nor the result: every comparison is a snapshot and may turn out differently the next day. We don't know about concerts, sports events and other occasions – they can push up prices in the comparison week too.
Where the trade fair dates come from
We read every date on the organiser's website – the trade fair itself or the venue – not in third-party trade fair calendars. Every trade fair states the day we checked and links to the page with the dates. The calendar lists the major trade fairs until January 2028 whose dates the organiser has already announced. Many trade fairs take place only every two or three years; we don't extrapolate a year the organiser hasn't announced.
Dates are not guaranteed – check them with the organiser before you book. Trade fairs are postponed, shortened or cancelled, and some have separate days for trade visitors and the public.
Sectors, months and “Add to calendar”
We assign each trade fair to a sector ourselves – based on the topic the organiser gives, exactly one per trade fair. A trade fair like ISH (plumbing, heating, air conditioning) is therefore listed under “Energy and building services”, not also under “Construction”. On the month pages a trade fair appears in every month in which it runs. Months our calendar doesn't fully cover have no page of their own.
“Add to calendar” downloads a calendar file (.ics) with the dates as the organiser gives them – all-day, with the source and the day we checked. The file is already part of the page; downloading it sends no request to us or anyone else. If the organiser changes the dates, your calendar file doesn't update by itself.
How up to date the information is
We query each venue again roughly every one to two weeks; every page gives the date of the query (“as of”). Exactly how often depends on how many queries share the night – we query the same venue again after seven days at the earliest. We show hotels from 8 properties per venue. If a new query falls short of that, the page shows the last one that was enough for up to six weeks, with its date. If a venue doesn't have one yet, its page searches live in our hotel search until then – with the dates of the trade fair.
What we don't know
- Whether a hotel is still available on your fair days – only the hotel search with your dates shows that, and finally the provider.
- How long the walk or train ride is: the straight-line distance is a measure of closeness, not directions.
- Whether Google's ratings are right: we take them over but don't verify them.
- Photos, hotel class, location and facilities come from Google; they may be out of date.
The photos
The photos show the trade fair cities and the towns of the alternative bases, not the exhibition centres themselves – exactly where is stated under each photo. All of them come from Wikimedia Commons and are under free licences (CC BY or CC BY-SA); we show them in our own crops, served by our server. Your browser doesn't connect to Wikimedia for them.
- Mainufer, Frankfurt (main image on the home page): The skyline above the River Main with the Ignatz-Bubis bridge at sunset. Photo: Marco Nürnberger, CC BY 2.0.
- Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage, Frankfurt: The Messeturm with its avenue of flags at the City entrance. Photo: Bohao Zhao, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
- Stockum, Düsseldorf (aerial photo): Aerial view of the Düsseldorf exhibition centre on the Rhine. Photo: Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
- Messeplatz, Cologne-Deutz: South entrance and Hall 11 of Koelnmesse. Photo: Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Hannover Exhibition Grounds (Expo roof, near Hall 26): The Expo roof at the Hannover Exhibition Grounds. Photo: ThoBel-0043, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
- Messe München, Riem (West entrance): West entrance of Messe München with flags. Photo: Pressestelle Messe München, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Messedamm, Berlin-Westend: Messe Berlin's round building with the radio tower. Photo: Matthias Süßen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Messezentrum Nürnberg, street side: Hall 3A of NürnbergMesse at blue hour. Photo: Thomas Geiger / Mesago, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, cropped.
- Schlossplatz, Stuttgart: The Neues Schloss on Schlossplatz at dawn. Photo: Julian Herzog, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
- Karolinenstraße / Messeplatz, Hamburg: Hamburg Messe with the glass bridge on Karolinenstraße. Photo: hh oldman, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
- Messepark, Leipzig: The Glass Hall of Leipziger Messe reflected in the lake. Photo: Joeb07, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
- Norbertstraße, Essen-Rüttenscheid: The new glass foyer (East entrance) of Messe Essen. Photo: Messe Essen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Plaça Univers / Av. Joan Carles I, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat: Toyo Ito's entrance building at Fira Gran Via. Photo: Kent Wang, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
- Piazza del Duomo, Milan: The cathedral and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on Piazza del Duomo. Photo: kuhnmi, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
- Eiffel Tower, Paris: The Eiffel Tower behind trees in blossom in spring. Photo: © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
- Europaplein, Amsterdam-Zuid: The Europahal of RAI Amsterdam with the Signaal tower. Photo: Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
- Grüner Markt, Fürth: Grüner Markt with the Gaukler fountain in the evening. Photo: Magnus Gertkemper, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
- Kurpark, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe: The Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad in the spa park. Photo: DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Old town, Eschborn: Unterortstraße in the old town in spring. Photo: Tri-l, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
- Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen: Schloss Morsbroich. Photo: Marcin-Janek, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
- Münsterplatz, Bonn: Bonn Minster on Münsterplatz. Photo: Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, cropped.
- Innenhafen, Duisburg: The inner harbour at blue hour. Photo: Tuxyso / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
- Marktplatz, Halle (Saale): Market square with the Red Tower and the Market Church. Photo: Tilman2007, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
Measured on 11 October 2026
Before there were any pages, we tested the queries for the eleven venues in Germany. Google doesn't return queries with “near” (“Hotels near Messe Frankfurt”) as a list our server can read; queries with the name of the venue it does. For Berlin and Essen, the venue's district (Westend, Rüttenscheid) brought up the closer hotels. Of 203 hotels checked within the radius, Booking.com or the Expedia Group offered 193 for the sample trip (7 to 9 November 2026); each of the eleven venues had twelve hotels. For the four venues abroad, the query with the venue's name worked in Barcelona, Milan and Amsterdam; for Paris Nord Villepinte, Google only returned the list with “Hotels Villepinte” – including the airport hotels at Roissy.
For the alternative bases, we read Google's hotel search list for each town and counted how many hotels with a photo are near the station – Fürth 22 within 2 km, Bonn 22 within 1.5 km, Leverkusen 11 within 3 km. In Fürth our partners offered 18 of the 22 hotels checked. Neighbouring towns for which we found no official information on the connection (such as Neuss, Hildesheim or Erlangen) are deliberately not listed.