British Council Germany held their annual event in January 2018. This tour included visits to Dusseldorf, Hanover, Hamburg and Berlin.
We feel a tour is the best way to reach a number of cities, in different federal states, reaching people in more areas of this highly federal and devolved country in a cost effective and time efficient way. Our fairs are the only fairs in Germany for UK universities only.
We work together with the host institution to promote the fairs. If at all possible we select venues that are HEIs and have a large number of students in order to increase the chances of PG students attending. The universities promote the fairs to their own students and often build other international activities around the British Council fair.
This event “sold out” as ever, with the maximum thirty UK institutions attending, however due to the set-up of the venues (foyers of university/ education institute buildings with multiple doors and public access) and the nature of the fairs: four hours, only 2 British Council staff accompanying the group, it is not possible to count the total number of people coming through the doors.
The quality of the enquiries count for more than the quantity and so we ask UK institutions how many serious enquiries they had in each city. Serious meaning, the student is seriously thinking about coming to study in the UK/ at your institution. The main reason for this is that German students to a great deal of research before coming to a fair and will often have a (long) list of (detailed) questions and will target the one, two or three institutions that they are really interested in rather than talking to all universities present.