Visitors to Première Vision Paris held last week amounted to 54,500, 71% of whom came from 120 foreign countries. Compared to February 2017, visitors decreased by 3%.
The slight pullback in visitors, especially international attendees, is the direct result of this year’s calendar, which overlapped with the Chinese New Year, a situation that on its own accounted for 50% of the decline in visitors, with visitors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong falling 42%.
Visitors came mainly from Europe (77% of attendees). France took the lead with 15,842 visitors (up 4%). Italy came in second place with 6,125 (11% of attendance), followed by the U.K. with 5,291 (10% of attendance). The trio was followed by Spain (3,475), Germany with 1,844 (3% of visitors), the Netherlands (1,494) and Belgium (1,448).
There was also a rise in attendance from Portugal (1,180 visitors), pointing to its economic recovery and growing influence in the sector. Visitors from Northern Europe were led by Sweden (508) and Denmark (473), both of which are now essential to the creative fashion scene.
Nine percent of the professional visitors came from Asia. The show saw a decrease in Asian visitors, highly affected by the Chinese New Year. With 1,544 visitors, Japan led the Asian countries. Attendance from China was down for a total of nearly 780 visitors, and visitors from Korea totaled 990.
With more than 1,900 visitors, North America saw a decline in attendance. Primarily, this is a direct consequence of structural and economic changes in the U.S., which accounted for 1,606 (down 5%).
Turkey posted an almost 20% increase in visitors to 2,859, and ranked 5th among visitor countries.