The IFAT environmental technology and services trade fair, held last week in Munich, has established a number of new records. The number of attendees hit a hew high of over 135,000 visitors after reaching 125,000 at the previous edition in 2012, according to the organiser, Messe München.
The 60,000 international attendees put the proportion of total fair visitors coming from outside Germany to this year's fair at nearly 45 per cent. The largest contingent of foreign attendees came from Austria, followed by Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Russian Federation, Spain and the UK. Visitors represented 170 countries. According to Messe München's annual report for that year, the 2012 edition of the fair drew visitors from 180 countries.
In sum, 3,081 exhibitors presented their goods and services covering an area of 230,000 square metres last week. Two years earlier, the number of exhibitors stood at 2,939 and the exhibition area covered 215,000 square metres. The share of international exhibitors climbed by 4 percentage points to 44 per cent. The organiser also noted that according to a survey carried out by the company TNS Infratest, 94 per cent of the exhibitors said the quality of visitors was either "good" or "excellent".
