More than 128,000 visitors (including estimates for the last day of the fair) attended this year's imm cologne – an increase against the most recent edition of the event without the co-located LivingKitchen show (125,000 visitors in 2018).
As in previous years, imm had a strong international profile. Of the 82,000 trade visitors (80,704 in 2018), around 50% came from outside Germany. And, despite the ongoing concentration of the German wholesale and retail trade, the event recorded a small rise in domestic trade visitors, again bucking the trend of recent years.
“With these results, imm cologne not only underscores its prominent position in the global business – the increase in planners, architects and contract furnishers from Germany further emphasises its importance for the German market,” says Gerald Böse, president and CEO of organiser Koelnmesse.
“imm cologne presented the relevant issues emotionally this year and gave a whole industry new, creative impetus. With its international attractiveness, it was a dynamic event that made for a highly promising start to the new year.”
The countries with the highest numbers of visitors were the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and France. The largest increases were recorded from Switzerland (+18%), the Netherlands (+11%) and Belgium (+10%). The numbers of visitors from North America also increased significantly (+14.1%).
Specialist retailers and high-profile international visitors were in attendance, many of them coming from the global top 30 chains. Growth here was especially strong from the UK, including visitors from DFS, Heal’s and John Lewis, plus Amazon, the Otto Group and Wayfair.
