On September 20, ITMA 2007 closed its doors in Munich. Rarely, if ever, are so many things perfect like they were at this 15th ITMA. In total, 1,451 companies from 38 countries - in displays covering 102,000 square meters of exhibition space - presented their latest developments and technical innovations for the entire textile chain to visitors and competitors.
Big Success
The globalization of the textile industry was impressively reflected at ITMA 2007. The exhibition of textile machinery, held September 13-20, attracted 118,000 trade visitors from 149 countries to the New Munich Trade Fair Centre. Forty-five percent of the visitors were first time ITMA attendees. Never before has ITMA attracted visitors from so many different countries.
The top 10 visitor countries were Germany, Italy, India, Turkey, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Spain, Iran and Belgium. The interest from Central and South America also was particularly strong — more than 4,500 trade visitors came from Brazil, more than 2,000 from Argentina and more than 1,500 from Mexico. In total, ITMA 2007 attracted approximately 12,000 visitors from Central and South America.
More than 95,000 trade visitors came from abroad, representing more than 80 percent of the visitor total. “This superb result for ITMA 2007 is a reflection of the excellent cooperation between CEMATEX, VDMA and Messe München, as an international trade-fair organizer with a worldwide sales network,” said Johann Philipp Dilo, managing director, Dilo Maschinensystem GmbH, Germany, and VDMA president.
High Quality Standard Of Visitors
The record number of visitors is not the most pleasing point about the show. Much more important, according to exhibitors interviewed by Textile World, is that the visitors were of extremely high quality and were from almost all important textile markets of the world. An exhibitor survey conducted by the show organizers provided evidence of the same results. More than 86 percent of the exhibitors mentioned the international scope as “good” to “excellent”; more than 88 percent gave the same rating to the quality of visitors.
Five Hundred Visits A Day
One of the biggest exhibitors mentioned it had some 4,000 visits — technical discussions with concrete requests — during the show. This is 500 conversations per day. It was mentioned in many TW interviews that these conversations often took place with the owner and the technical director of the customer. This finally creates a meaningful conversation about product-oriented projects, which is quite new to the traditional textile industry — but is common sense in the technical textiles business.
Heinrich Trützschler, managing director of Trützschler GmbH & Co. KG Textilmaschinenfabrik, and chairman of the ITMA Committee, said: “ITMA is the leading trade fair for textile machinery manufacturers. We have found that at this fair, visitor quality is really superb, from all over the world. And we get to talk to some really top people here, whom you rarely get to see. It all went extremely smoothly.”
Challenge For Barcelona
In the last Rupp Report, the question was asked if CEMATEX members will unite to support an ITMA 2011 in Barcelona, or will the disagreement continue and limit the ability for 2011 to be the next strong ITMA in Europe? After interviewing many exhibitors in Munich, this question is not even an issue anymore. The decision was made, and exhibitors are willing to make the best of it. And — but this is common sense — quantity does not always mean quality. Now it’s up to the organizers of ITMA 2011 in Barcelona to maintain the level of success experienced in Munich. Servus Munich, Buonas Dias, Barcelona.
