Neolectum - Building and interiors industry - carpets and floor coverings - contract property business - Ceramic tiles

End-of-show report - DOMOTEX Middle East (May 2008)

Gulf region’s international trade fair for carpets and floor coverings registers additional growth

DOMOTEX Middle East closed this year with another increase in the number of exhibitors and visitors. Finally, 280 exhibitors (2007: 269 exhibitors) from 36 nations appeared at the Gulf region’s international trade fair for carpets and floor coverings to present their latest products and innovations. 6,430 trade visitors (2007: 6,326 trade visitors) were treated to a comprehensive overview of the individual product sectors over the three-day event (25 to 27 May).

“In the third year of its existence, DOMOTEX Middle East has definitively established itself as the leading event of its type in the Gulf region,” declared Stephan Ph. Kühne, Managing Board Member at Deutsche Messe, adding: “The outstanding results have strengthened our resolve to expand our role in Dubai.”

Of the overall total of 280 exhibitors, 243 came from abroad – proof of the highly international character of DOMOTEX Middle East, which measured 12,000 square meters of display space. Exhibitors from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia accounted for half of this display space.

Numerous other countries, such as Afghanistan, Belgium, China, Croatia, the United States and Germany were represented with official group pavilions. The key display sectors consisted of hand-woven and machine-woven carpets, featuring 72 and 56 exhibitors respectively, plus parquet and other wood floors, with 60 exhibitors. The range of exhibits at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center was rounded out by textile and resilient floor coverings, laminate flooring, maintenance and application technologies as well as ceramic tiles, natural stone floors and marble floors.

This year a total of 6,430 trade visitors interested in generating new leads and buying attended from 91 different nations. Apart from the United Arab Emirates (with 53 percent of all trade visitors) attendance came from the other Gulf Cooperation Council nations (GCC) – i.e. Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi-Arabia – as well as from Iran, India, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. Trade visitor categories at DOMOTEX Middle East included floor coverings wholesalers and retailers, decision-makers from the contract property business, planners, architects, interior designers, interior decorators, builders and their buyers, project developers and managers, plus floor layers and installers.

Exhibitors, visitors and the event’s organizers were all highly satisfied with the run of the event. Over half of all visitors came with the objective of finding new suppliers, and 63 percent of exhibitors reported concluding concrete sales deals. Numerous exhibitors wrote up sizable orders and generated a large number of valuable new leads during the three-day tradeshow.

Special supporting events, such as the “Creative Flooring” presentation, also served as visitor magnets. There, professional floor installers gave live demonstrations of how combining different materials can lead to a completely new design for new floor covering installations.

The “Designers Corner” featured a series of seminars and presentations for designers and architects on the topic of innovative floor coverings. This event, staged in cooperation with the American University in Dubai, met with an excellent visitor response.

The next DOMOTEX Middle East takes place from 12 to 14 May 2009, again at Dubai.

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