For many people (yours truly included), CeBIT represents some sort of "Holy Grail" for technology and gadgets, or, better yet, a "gadget fairytale land," where a lot of important names from the IT industry showcase their latest developments in the field of portable and desktop computing, displays, digital cameras, GPS navigation devices and all sorts of other gadgets. However, any such "dreamland" requires its princess (or princesses), who tend to make things a little bit more interesting for the visitors.

Some call them "booth babes," but since I see that term as objectifying them, I prefer calling them "ladies of CeBIT.” In most cases, the role of hostesses is to attract the male visitor's eye (you can trust me, the large majority of CeBIT visitors were males, of all ages), and most of them manage to do so without any problems (for obvious reasons), since they're also part-time or full-time models.

During my visit at CeBIT, I've managed to have a brief conversation with one of these attractive young ladies (I'll give you a hint - one of the two who voluntarily posed for the camera, they're very easy to spot), who confessed that, for them, it's actually a rather tough job. Of course, they get to be admired by many people, but they also have to "fake flirt" a lot in order to make visitors approach their employers' booths (or at least that's what she said).

Also, standing up almost constantly for around six or seven days in a row is rather tiring; on the other hand, they do manage to make quite a good pay out of it, and that can come in handy. Plus, they get to meet a lot of interesting people, albeit the large majority of visitors try to hit on them, in one way or the other.

Once, a lot of companies used this method in order to attract visitors to their booths and products (apparently, there's a very strong link between feminine beauty and technology). However, over the recent couple of years, that trend has gone downwards, with fewer and fewer scantily-clad hostesses appearing at shows.

And it's very likely that this phenomenon will be felt throughout the various tradeshows of 2009, as companies try to cut costs (although my personal opinion is that this is one area where they should actually invest more).

These considerations aside, I'll leave you with some of the most attractive ladies encountered during our entire visit at CeBIT 2009. Obviously, there were a lot more ladies there, but we've chosen just the ones that really managed to do their job best and attract the visitors' attention.