Heimtextil, which is the world’s greatest home textiles fair, managed to bring the global market together in its new edition in 2012 in Frankfurt. The fair organized by Messe Frankfurt on January 11-14, 2012, focused on the issue of sustainability. 70 thousand peope visited the fair, which hosted 2,634 participants from 61 countries. 441 companies from China, 385 from India, 344 from Germany, 291 from Pakistan and 172 companies from Turkey took part in the fair. At the conference held on the opening day of the fair, it was stated that the business volume that will generated during the fair will be more than 500 million Euros. Songül Saruhanoğlu and Musa İmdat, Managers of Textil Dünyası Magazine, made interviews at the fair.
The topics of Heimtextil 2012, which was held in 19 halls, include; kitchen and bath textiles, wall coverings, carpets, decorative fabrics, sun protection systems. Designers, wholesalers, furniture manufacturers, retailers, decorators, interior designers, and important buyers from the global market were among the significant visitors of the fair
The trend for 2012/2013 season called Montage, which was introduced at Heimtextil includes 4 themes that are Colour Riot, Dark Lux, Craft Industry and Split Clarity. The companies that focus on sustainable production processes and eco-friendly products at Heimtextil 2012, which also focused on sustainability, found outstanding places for themselves. The Green Directory, introduced for the first time the previous year at the fair, was also presented this year. The directory included the companies, which participated in the fair and which are engaed in eco-friendly-sustainable production. The wall coverings attracted great interest in Heimtextil 2012. Several companies known in this field, exhibited their collections in Hall 3.1.
155 Turkish companies participated in the previous edition of Heimtextil held in last year. This figure increased to 172 in 2012. The Turkish textile manufacturers exhibited their home textiles products mostly in the Halls 4,3 and 8. The companies were mainly from the traditional textile cities such as İstanbul, Bursa and Denizli.
The Participants and the Visitors were Satisfired with the Fair
The fair officials state that despite the ongoing economic uncertainty, the interest shown by the Germans in the fair give positive signals regarding both the visitors and the participants. Last year, 341 companies from Germany participated in the fair and this figure increased to 344 this year. The experts state that these figures set the ground for beginning the year 2012 with hopes and that the 4,6 percent of increase observed in the sales at the end of 2011, is a result of the growth in demand in the domestic market. The experts argue that the growth in the demand within the domestic market will continue also this year and that compared to the electronic entertainment products, the demand for the home textiles (bedi bath and table linen, textile floor coverings, curtains, decorative fabircs and wall papers) will increase rapidly beginning with 2009. In 2010, the German households purchased 224 Euros worth of home textile products and this figure is expected to increase to 242 Euros in 2012.
In the visitor profile of the fair, the quality of the visitors increased from 69 percent to 86 percent and the target groups increased from 12 percent to 79 percent. These are considered to be positive developments both for the German economy and for the German home textiles sector. According to the survey conducted at the fair, only 8 percent of the German participants made a negative forecasting while this figure increased to 27 percent among the participants from outside of Germany. On the other hand 81 percent of the participants from outside of Germany stated that they were satisfied with the fair as they reached their goal.
The next Heimtextil Frankfurt Home Textiles Fair will be organized on January 9-12, 2013 at its traditional location Frankfurt am Main.
