Ispo Munich discloses new attendance figures

Messe München has shared with us more details about the flow of visitors at the last edition of the Ispo Munich trade show, which took place on Feb. 5-8. As previously reported, total attendance grew by 2.7 percent to more than 83,000 daily passes through the turnstiles, with increases of 4.7 percent from Germany and 1.6 percent from other countries.

The number of visitors from Austria and Switzerland declined by about 10 percent because of the exceptional weekend schedule of the show. Especially in Austria, many operators of mountain shops decided to stay at home to sell products to their customers. As previously reported, Ispo Munich will return to a more normal Sunday-Wednesday schedule next year, running from Jan. 24 to 27.

For Swiss retailers, the problem of the dates was compounded by the steep rise of the Swiss franc, which is leading many of their customers to make their purchases in Germany. There was also a small drop in attendance from Sweden. On the other hand, the number of Italian visitors was nearly stable and attendance from Spain went up by more than 25 percent, returning to the levels prior to the economic crisis.

The economic, monetary and political problems in Russia led to a decrease of about 40 percent in the number of visitors from this important market. Instead, the flow of visitors from the U.K., China, Taiwan, the U.S., Turkey and Portugal increased in remarkable ways, as shown in the chart on this page. The number of visitors from Mainland China and Taiwan doubled as compared to last year because the fair did not coincide with the Chinese New Year, as it did in 2014. There were a few more Chinese visitors than in 2013.