EUROPARKET 2010: fewer visitors, but good business volume

We knew in advance the number of visitors would go down during Europarket, which took place at the end of April in Kortrijk Xpo, Belgium. In these tough times, it was only to be expected that the number of exhibitors would fall (122 in comparison to the previous record edition of two years ago, when there were 186 exhibitors). Eventually, Europarket received 4,449 visitors during the three days of the fair, a drop (-31%) which was almost perfectly in line with the lower number of exhibitors (-34%).
What does all of this mean for the future of the fair? Numerous exhibitors said they appreciated the very high quality of their visitors, that on most of the stands business went remarkably well and that the necessary new contacts were made.
Exhibition Manager Nathalie Sandra: “We are not surprised the organization received such positive response. It is clear the quality of our visitor was high and that business went well good to very well for quite a number of companies, depending on the group aimed at. We noticed moreover that the important international buyers and a fairly big number of wholesale companies have found their way to Kortrijk. The only drawback is that quite some parquet installers failed to show up. In the past, this was exactly the group that attracted the biggest number of visitors”.
As always, various reasons can be found for the decreased presence of parquet installers. A number of exhibitors were told these people judged that the offer of new items was not big enough, but to us, the main reason must be found in the market itself. Following a very disappointing month of March for most of the parquet installers, the activity picked up remarkably as from the first half of April, which was confirmed by the parquet union ‘Dé Parketplaatsers’. This being the case, work comes first and visiting a fair is no longer a major priority. If there was a Belgian invasion...”.