Page 4 - CH 2-2023 EN

EDITORIAL
Full steam ahead after a successful restart
This spring issue of Carpet Home tells the story of how beneficial it is for our industry that regular trade fairs are being held again. Here we report on Domotex, Heimtextil and other fairs, and in fact the cover story of our visit to Rezas in Denmark (from page 62) and the In- terview of the Month with Belgian machine weaver Mc Three (from page 70) both resulted directly from conversations had at Domotex.
Domotex! Despite considerable uncertainty in the run-up, it is now clear how much the in- dustry values and makes use of this platform. The 700 exhibiting suppliers there amounted to roughly half of the figure for 2020, yet many decision-makers from carpet and furnishing businesses converged on Hannover, and the long-awaited restart after the pandemic must be described as a success. For next year however the organizers need to win back the many exhibitors who sat out this year in order to further heighten the fair’s profile as an attractive event for international industry players.
See Domotex report starting on page 32.
We have been quite occupied with other fairs as well besides Domotex, going for example to Morocco in December for Marrakech Carpet Week (page 26). Then we were at Heimtextil to kick off the new expo year (page 30), followed by Ambiente (page 50). In a feature starting on page 52 we look at the carpet trends for 2023 that we observed during these trade fair visits.
The many great conversations we had at industry trade fairs were so enjoyable, but over- shadowed in part by the horror of the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. Production in Gaziantep, Turkey’s carpet capital, is back to normal, but in general there is very little normality in the region, which remains in need of support, from us all.
Returning to the subject of Domotex, where Carpet Home again awarded Carpet Stars to four exemplary carpet retailers from different industry segments. A special prize was addition- ally awarded in recognition of the life’s work of Hans-Peter Köster. You can read all about the winning Carpet Star recipients starting on page 76.
We hope you get many good ideas from this issue, and enjoy the reading!
Tim Steinert & Beate Boehm
4 II / 2023