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Imm cologne achieves an even greater international reach than ever before

published on: 11 febbraio 2019
Imm cologne achieves an even greater international reach than ever before
imm cologne/LivingKitchen drew to a close on Sunday (20 January 2019) with excellent results. A total of 150,000 visitors - including estimates for the final day of the events - made their way to Cologne to be inspired by the interior design worlds and kitchen showcases on display. 

With 52 per cent of trade visitors coming from abroad, the co-located events achieved an even greater global reach than ever before. Overall, more than one in two trade visitors travelled from abroad to attend the events. The visitors came from 145 countries. Growth in overseas trade visitors was especially strong. But the trade fair duo also attracted greater numbers of visitors from other European nations.
 "These results underscore once again that Cologne is the place to be for the global world of interior design. The past seven days have shown clearly that it is here in Cologne that the industry sets the direction for the coming year," said Gerald Böse, President and Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse
Echoing his comments, Jan Kurth, Chief Executive of the Verband der Deutschen Möbelindustrie (Association of the German Furniture Industry, VDM), said, "After a challenging 2018, this edition of imm cologne was an outstanding event and a successful trade fair that we as the industry are very pleased with." Speaking on behalf of specialist retailers, Thomas Grothkopp, Managing Director of the Handelsverband Wohnen und Büro (German Retail Association for Home and Office Furniture, HWB), said: "imm cologne and LivingKitchen were once again a hotspot for inspiration and business contacts for specialist retailers. They created an appetite for interior design and made for a dynamic start to 2019."

But imm cologne and LivingKitchen did not just excel quantitatively.
 Registration data for the co-located events shows that they attracted a high quality audience of retailers and wholesalers. Specialist retailers and high-profile international visitors from the furnishings trade and interior design business were recorded as visitors, with many of them coming from the global top 30 chains. 
Growth here was especially strong from the United Kingdom, with visitors from DFS, Heal's, John Lewis, Hatfields and Kingfisher. The events also drew a strong audience from Scandinavia in the form of IDdesign, JYSK, Svenska Hem, the Indoor Group from Finland, Bromölla Möbelaffär and Sängjätten, whose entire purchasing teams attended several days of the trade fairs. They were joined at imm cologne by decision-makers from the major international department stores, including Alinéa from France, El Corte Inglés from Spain, Nitori from Japan and Boston Interiors from the USA. The major industry players in online retail - including Amazon, the Otto Group and Wayfair - also used the event intensively for their business. The Pure segment attracted significantly larger numbers of design-led retailers in the homewares and interiors segment from the US, Canada, Asia, Russia and Korea to imm cologne, demonstrating the strong appeal of the trade fair's offerings for international specialist retailers and wholesalers.

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