GERMANY – After seven days (January 19-15), imm cologne and LivingKitchen closed their doors with a very positive outcome.

146,000 visitors from 138 countries came to the Cologne exhibition grounds, among them 102,000 industry visitors (2013: 99,000 industry visitors) from the national and international trade, meaning that the fair duo exceeded even its extraordinary performance of 2013.

“These figures prove that the international appeal of the two events in Cologne has grown even more and that the fair duo is, without a doubt, the most important platform for the domestic as well as the international market”, concludes Gerald Böse, President and Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse GmbH. “This is a great indication for Cologne as a trade fair location and confirms the effectiveness of imm cologne and LivingKitchen as a marketing tool”, he added.

This year, imm cologne and LivingKitchen presented themselves as very international events. Of the 102,000 industry visitors, around 56,000 came from Germany and approximately 46,000 from abroad (an increase of 13 per cent). In total, the percentage of visitors from abroad was 45 (based on industry visitor days).

Within Europe, increases in visitor figures were recorded in particular from Spain (up 27 per cent), the UK (up 20 per cent), Italy (up 11 per cent) and the Netherlands (up 13 per cent). Visitor figures from France, Scandinavia and Poland also showed good growth and off set the politically induced fall off in visitors from Russia. Significant increases could also be seen in industry visitor figures from China (up 32 per cent) and from the US (up 47 per cent).