German exhibitors were particularly pleased with their results – no less than 84 percent said their participation had been successful to very successful, a significant increase on the previous year (77 percent). Even higher was the level of satisfaction on the visitor side where 92 percent said they were satisfied to very satisfied with the range of products on show and the course of business at the fair.

Against this background of orders, product launches and new contacts, the sector nevertheless noted that many delegations from the distributive trades, the handicrafts trade, design and industry were no longer as big as in the past. This reduced the number of visitors by a good five percent to around 70,000 (2011: 73,071, audited by the Society for the Voluntary Control of Fair and Exhibition Statistics (FKM)). “The decline is primarily due to a fall in numbers from those European nations that have been particularly hard hit by the debt crisis, especially Italy, Spain, Greece, France and The Netherlands”, explained Detlef Braun. In contrast to this, there was an increase in the number of visitors from the Russian Federation, the Middle East, Turkey and the Far East. The biggest visitor countries after Germany were Italy, Turkey, China, Great Britain, the USA, France, Spain, the Russian Federation, The Netherlands and Poland. Altogether, the proportion of visitors from outside Germany amounted to 64.2 percent (2011: 65.4 percent).

Despite the prevailing economic uncertainties, positive signals came from Germany. Both visitors and exhibitors are beginning the new business year with a positive outlook. The good prognoses are based on a sales increase of 4.6 percent at the end of 2011, the result of growth in domestic demand. And, say the experts, demand will remain at a high level this year. Home and household textiles, e.g., bed, bathroom and table linen, textile floor coverings, curtains, decorative fabrics and wallpaper, are particularly popular among German consumers with demand having risen steadily since the 2009 financial crisis to a level that is higher than that for entertainment electronics. Thus, in 2010, German households purchased home textiles worth an average of € 224. Now, for 2012, the IFH Retail Consultants market-research company in Cologne is forecasting an average household expenditure of € 242 for such products – i.e., € 20 or eight percent more. By comparison, household expenditures on entertainment electronics were only € 212 in 2010 with no further growth expected in 2012.

On behalf of the German industry, Martin Auerbach, Director of the Association of the German Home Textile Industry (Verband der Deutschen Heimtextilien-Industrie), Wuppertal, summed up the situation as follows: “For our members and the entire sector, Heimtextil 2012 has been a highly satisfactory event. As the opening trade fair of the year, it generated even more new contacts, innovations and orders than the year before and this will motivate us greatly over the coming year. Additionally, Heimtextil has continued to improve in qualitative terms. Specific areas, such as the contract sector, the coupon business and sustainability, have been tailored perfectly to the needs of buyers from the distributive trades, the handicrafts trade and the contract business. Thus, Messe Frankfurt has further increased its expertise in the field of trade fairs for the textile sector.”

Particularly pleasing in this connection is the correlation of the good results of the fair reported by German exhibitors and visitors with the positive assessments of the economic outlook. In both cases, significantly more German exhibitors and visitors expressed themselves in positive terms. Thus, there was a leap in the number of good to very good ratings for visitor target groups reached (up 12 percent points to 79 percent) and visitor quality (from 69 percent to 86 percent). The estimation of the economic outlook made by exhibitors from outside Germany is not so optimistic – 27 percent of foreign exhibitors are pessimistic against only eight percent of their German colleagues.

In view of this, a successful fair is all the more encouraging. Thus, a remarkable 81 percent of non-German exhibitors said they are satisfied to very satisfied in terms of achieving their goals for the fair. Beddinghouse – Jan Harmsen, Sales Manager Europe, from The Netherlands (Hall 11.0): “That was the best fair ever. Yes, we held very good discussions. Visitor quality was very high – not only with regard to European visitors but also to those from other parts of the world. Heimtextil is the only fair that has a genuine worldwide impact. I never thought we would take so many orders, especially from whole­salers.”