The Chinese buyers return to the Salone del Mobile. Boom in attendance also from Brazil and the United States

Listen to the audio version of the article

A surge in bookings from the United States, Brazil, France and Germany, as well as from other European countries but, above all, a long-awaited return, that of Chinese visitors who, to date, are the most numerous foreign patrol, according to pre-sale data from the ticket office, which records, date on date, an increase in arrivals of 25% compared to last year. The Salone del Mobile returns to Milan from 18 to 23 April, in its traditional spring dates after three years of postponed or rescheduled editions, which however have left something important as a legacy, recalls the president Maria Porro: the ability to renew and adapt, even quickly, to the continuous transformations and even emergencies of our times.

What’s new for 2023

So here it is, the new Salone del Mobile. New, yes: because from this year it will take place entirely on a single level, hosting the stands of almost 2 thousand companies (including 550 young designers from the Salone Satellite) on almost 170,000 m2 of exhibition space, 34% arriving from abroad, confirming its increasingly global dimension.

But also new because the format of the event itself has been reviewed and rethought, starting with Euroluce, the biennial dedicated to lighting, which this year presents itself with a completely renewed layout, created by the Lomardini22 studio and designed to make the visit to the operators, integrating it above all with a cultural offer (exhibitions, seminars, talks) curated by Beppe Finessi in collaboration with various designers and artists.

The return of buyers from abroad

Among the companies there is great expectation for the return of visitors from abroad and in particular from China: «I haven’t seen my Chinese employees since 2019, on the contrary: two of them, who were hired later, I have never even met them », an entrepreneur tells us. No one expects the numbers of the record pre-pandemic edition (almost 400,000 visitors), but replicating those numbers is not even the aim of the Salone, explains the president Porro: «We have done a great job of promoting and narrating the new Salone in Italy and abroad, aiming to have profiled visitors – says Porro -. More than quantity, we focus on quality». Among these also 450 top buyers arriving from strategic markets thanks to the collaboration with Ice.

A healthy industrial chain

As always, the Salone will be an opportunity to let the world know about the industrial, creative and innovative capacity of Italian furniture companies: a healthy sector, despite the many difficulties it has gone through in these three years, from the pandemic to the war, from the energy to inflation. As expected, 2023 opened with a slowdown in demand, but it was difficult to expect the opposite, after two and a half years of unprecedented growth, as the president of FederlegnoArredo, Claudio Feltrin recalls: «After the record of 2021, even 2022 closed with a double-digit increase, bringing the wood-furniture supply chain to 56.5 billion euros in turnover, and the furniture sector to almost 29 billion euros – explains Feltrin -. Obviously this increase must be purged of the inflationary effect, but even net of the increases, we still closed the year with strong growth compared to pre-pandemic levels ».