Domotex 2006 Attendance Up 10.6%

Hannover, Germany, January 19, 2006--Domotex Hannover 2006 attracted more visitors than ever before. Over 48,500 professionals flocked to the world's largest trade fair for carpets and floor coverings to check out the latest trends and products. This represented a 10.6% increase on last year's total of 43,855. 'We have invested heavily in the quality of this trade fair in recent years, and exhibitors and visitors have now confirmed that this was the right way to go,' commented Stephan Ph. Kühne, member of the Board of Deutsche Messe AG. Kühne awarded the event high marks in terms of exhibitor participation and the amount of display space sold, with the statistics painting a clear picture: Total display space soared from 90,142 square meters in 2005 to 93,000 at this year's show, and exhibitor participation broke all records, leaping from last year's 1,244 to 1,362 this year. Kühne also underscored the event's strong international appeal: 'More than 75% of our exhibitors came from abroad. On the visitor side, we managed to raise the share of international attendance to 56.5%, with a total of 27,400 trade visitors coming from abroad. This indisputably makes Domotex Hannover one of the world's most international trade fairs.' The floor-coverings sector expressed great satisfaction with the amount of business generated at Domotex Hannover, stating it had fully satisfied their already high expectations coming into the show. According to industry representatives, the show's tangibly upbeat mood plus a wave of innovative ideas and keener customer receptiveness for quality resulted in brisk business activity. Exhibitors spoke of a marked increase in the number of international business leads, thus reconfirming the show's reputation as the most important meeting place for the global floor-coverings sector. Interest in the impressive lineup of exhibitor displays was further heightened by an array of special presentations, lectures and premium events, which met with a lively response on the part of attending trade professionals. One particular highlight was contractworld, the international forum for architecture and interior design. Around 2,400 participants took part in the contractworld.congress alone - an increase of 20% year-on-year. The great success of this year's Domotex was confirmed by key responses in the visitor survey. Domotex has never before hosted such a wealth of high-caliber visitors, with every second attendee stemming from senior, executive or plant management echelons. This all added up to 24,300 decision makers, or 37 percent more than last year. The unabated upward trend in domestic attendance was particularly gratifying. The number of visitors from Germany rose by 9.3% over the previous event to 21,100 this year. Attendance from southern Germany, in particular, continues to rise steeply, with this year's figure reaching a record 4,700 trade visitors for an enormous 49% increase over 2005. Domotex is the main platform for forging international business contacts. Of the total of 27,400 foreign visitors, around 60 percent came from other European countries. The second largest contingent was from Asia, at 27%, followed by the Americas, at more than eight percent. The organizers were especially gratified to record a net 10% increase in the number of visitors from South and North America, who totaled 2,200. Apart from wholesalers, the key visitor groups at Domotex Hannover consist of specialist retailers and members of the skilled trades. At this year's event the proportion of the skilled trades increased by 17% to 11,800 attendees, while the number of specialist retailers rose by 20% to 11,500. Particularly noteworthy was the enhanced attendance by architects and interior designers at Domotex 2006. Some 3,600 of these professional showed up this year.