More than 50,000 people visited the first stand-alone global intralogistics fair in Hannover, Germany, from October 11 to October 15.

Sepp D Heckmann, Deutsche Messe AG managing board chairman, said:
"The decision we and the industry jointly made to separate CeMAT from Hannover Messe and rebrand it as a stand-alone, global event for the technical logistics sector hit the nail on the head."

CeMAT 2005 attracted an international audience, with 35 per cent of trade visitors coming from outside Germany. Of that percentage, 11.1 per cent came from Asia and 10.7 per cent from the USA. Around 1,000 exhibitors occupied 75,000 square metres of display space at CeMAT 2005, of which 43 per cent were from outside Germany. One-third of that number came from Europe.

Josef Morat, marketing and key account manager for OM Carrelli Elevatori SpA, Italy, said Deutsche Messe AG had marketed CeMAT "very well" around the world.

Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks spokesperson Arjan Barten said his company was satisfied with the new CeMAT. "We noticed that the number of "professional" visitors was higher than at other exhibitions in Europe," he said.

"We noticed [also] that with this compact setup it was possible for the visitor to visit each and every hall in a proper manner. We were also satisfied with the increased percentage of foreign visitors compared to CeMAT 2002."

Daniel Vanhemelrijck, Doosan Daewoo's sales & marketing manager for Europe, said the exhibition was the most important international exhibition for forklift business in Europe.

"Some people from our organisation and also our competitors were very sceptical about this change but even if we do not have the exact figures yet I think it was a successful exhibition," Vanhemelrjick said.

"The best example of this is the visitors at our booth from countries as far as Canada, the USA, and even Brazil and Guatemala and also the impressive presence of Chinese suppliers, visitors and photographers," he said.

Daniel Hanssens from OMG, an Italian forklift manufacturer, said his company took the opportunity to meet up with its European dealers.

"We made a lot of contacts who want to work as resellers in other countries," he said. "This is the first time we have [attracted] a lot of interest in this fair. In the past, we didn't have a lot of interested people."

"The end user now knows us like a big player on the market," Hanssens said.

Next week, Forkliftaction.com News will publish a second review of CeMAT 2005. Feel free to email us your CeMAT experience.