Flanders event "not a challenge to Domotex"

The launch of the "ground-breaking" Flanders Flooring Days event in Belgium this week is not a challenge to Domotex, say its particpants.

Ten top flooring companies have teamed up for the four-day, face-to-face event hosted in showrooms and factories across the West Flanders region of Belgium.

Buyers and retailers from 55 countries are attending presentations and tours in the marketing initiative that follows two years of Covid cancellations by Domotex - the world's largest flooring fair which is normally hosted in Hannover each January.

"During the Covid crisis everything was online and that does not work well for flooring, customers have to see it and feel it,"  said Fa Quix, the head of the Fedustria, Belgium’s textile and furnishing trade body. "We need to have real-life contacts."

"But we see this event as complimentary to the other trade fairs - they will not disappear. Domotex is at a different time of year and we will still particpate," he said.

A sruvey of flooring companies in the important Flanders region found 80% of companies still found Domotex important for the industry.

Jan Dossche, President COREtec Floors International, is one of the founder members of the Flanders Flooring Days event added: "This is not an anti-exhibition campaign. We just want to take the flooring industry back into its glory days, face-to-face." He suggested that the Flanders event might be schedule to happen every other year.

The Flanders participants are some of Europe's largest flooring companies – Associated Weavers, Balta, Beaulieu International Group, Coretec Floors, ITC, IVC Group, Lano Carpet Solutions, Modulyss, Ragolle, and Unilin Flooring – and all have been substantial exhibitors at Domotex in the past, though with some recent contraction before Covid.

There has been speculation that Domotex might also become an event hosted every other year but organisers are keen to maintain the annual schedule.