CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF Confirms High Interest in Caravanning

This year's CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF with its numerous innovations, stable sales and satisfactory visitor figures has underlined its outstanding international position in the caravanning industry and has confirmed the high level of interest in the caravanning type of holiday.

"With 164,900 visitors, CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF 2012 has fully met our expectations. We have achieved our targets and are happy about the results", said Joachim Schäfer, Managing Director of Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, in his summary. "We are especially pleased that so many knowledgeable visitors have come to Düsseldorf thus ensuring a high quality of the discussions." And the number of visitors from abroad is remarkable: despite the current market situation in Europe, 24,000 international visitors from 38 countries use the opportunity offered by this international lead fair in Düsseldorf to get a first impression of the 2013 vehicle generation. Visitors even travelled from Australia, Japan and Brazil to find on-site inspiration in the diversity of products offered at the world's leading exhibition. "64% of our visitors use CARAVAN SALON to get information on innovations and trends", said Mr Schäfer. The Exhibition Centre's own Caravan Park, the Caravan Center, registered 25,000 vehicles for overnight stays.

The summary of the President of the German Caravanning Industry Association (CIVD), Mr Klaus Förtsch, was also positive: "Interest in caravanning continues to be high. We note nonetheless that visitor figures have dropped in comparison to our anniversary year and that our business deals fall slightly short of expectations. But the innovations presented at the exhibition have been received very well." In the mobile home category, his analysis says that the panel van segment and the entry-level segment of semi-integrated mobile homes continued to develop positively. In the caravan category, the focus shifted to smaller, compact vehicles, which score thanks to their high level of comfort and equipment.

CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF wants to provide a first-hand experience of a caravanning holiday. It sustains this claim thanks to a wide range of 570 exhibitors from 25 countries presenting mobile homes and caravans as well as accessories and destinations, but also thanks to the entertainment programme on and around the 'mobile leisure' theme, which was very polpular among visitors.

The majority of exhibitors at CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF 2012 were satisfied. "This exhibition has clearly exceeded our expectations. The feedback is excellent, and that impacted very favourably on our sales figures. Our conclusions are more than positive - more than we had expected", said a happy Giovanni Marcon, the CEO of Knaus Tabbert GmbH.

And Jörg Reithmeier, CEO of the Hymer brand, commented that his company had fully achieved the targets it set before the exhibition: "Visitors and customers feel a need for comprehensive and competent advice. We noted that the quality of our discussions increased yet again. But is it not only this interest; we are also very happy about our sales figures which even exceed the level of last year."

In addition, Dr. Holger Siebert, CEO of Eura Mobil GmbH, commented that a surprisingly high number of knowledgeable visitors had come to their stand. They primarily came from Germany, however. "CARAVAN SALON is and will remain the most important trade fair for us. Many customers do not open their purses quite as wide and are interested in less expensive vehicles for budgetary reasons." Furthermore, they noted that visitors from southern Europe showed a great reluctance to buy. "An increasing number of customers use CARAVAN SALON as an event to get competent advice, and they will then buy a vehicle from their local specialist dealer", added Siebert. The exhibition was also a success for suppliers. Joachim Kinscher, Executive Vice President of the Dometic Group, offered the following summary: "We may say that CARAVAN SALON continues to be the showcase of emotions, and it has impressively underlined its high significance for the industry. The visitors show a keen interest in highquality accessories and equipment. But due to the weak sales in many European countries, we had to adjust to a slight dip in our incoming orders." But the market in Germany continued to be in an excellent position, he said.

Just as in previous years, visitors showed a lot of interest in the tourism products offered at CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF. There was a surprisingly high number of visitors coming with concrete plans, said Eike Schürmann, the CEO of LeadingCampings. "We saw an enormous demand at our stand, and we are very happy. Visitors at our stand wanted information on specific holiday types and were looking for high-class camping sites at the destination they had chosen for their next holiday trip. CARAVAN SALON was a total success for us."

The 52th CARAVAN SALON DÜSSELDORF trade fair will take place from 30 August (trade visitors and media day) to 8 September 2013.

www.caravan-salon.de

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