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A clean return for Interclean Amsterdam
It’s been four years the last instalment of Interclean Amsterdam, so we headed back to the RAI Amsterdam for the 2022 edition of the cleaning industry’s biggest event this May to see what would be in store after such a prolonged absence. Martin Wharmby reports.
Running from Tuesday 10 to the spooky Friday 13 May, Interclean Amsterdam 2022 was the biggest event in the industry in quite a long time. With the 2020 show cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a long time since the industry truly came together on a global scale – and no, no matter how well intentioned and attended they were, no ‘digital’ show can replace events like Interclean.
For those of you new to the industry or unaware, Interclean Amsterdam is a biennial event at Amsterdam’s humongous RAI Amsterdam complex. Spanning four days, the event is the single biggest show on the cleaning industry’s calendar, attracting everyone from huge multinationals to local specialists, buyers, suppliers, and even industry publishers like ourselves. It’s also a great place for people to meet, greet and discover the latest and greatest in technologies and innovations.
Since the last time the cleaning and hygiene industry descended upon the Netherlands, the world – and our industry – has changed. The pandemic truly put us in the spotlight, as the work of the humble cleaning operative became a frontline position in the war against the Coronavirus, with new cleaning methodologies and safe products came to the forefront. Our ‘invisible’ industry has become a key part of the effort to protect and ‘reopen’ society, and cleaning will remain a visible and valuable asset for years to come.
The industry isn’t the only thing to have changed over the last few years: Interclean itself has had to make some major changes. At previous events, almost all of the many halls of the RAI were packed out with stands and stages, allowing
20 WHERCLEAN AMSTERDAM REVIEW | INTAT’S NEW?
you to walk around the entire venue in a loop. At the 2022 event, however, this was no longer possible, as several halls were taken up by another, unrelated show taking place alongside Interclean.
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
It was hard to hide the fact that Interclean Amsterdam 2022 felt like a more compact show than previous incarnations. With fewer halls, reduced floor space and lower exhibitor numbers, perhaps it was unavoidable that the previous two years were going to have an effect on a big public event like this. While many big-name industry players were at the show, many others either didn’t make an appearance at all, or scaled back their involvement – some only participating in the Conference programme, or taking smaller spaces than in previous years.
Numbers don’t lie: the international ensemble consisted of 669 exhibitors and 25,886 visitors from 125 countries. Impressive as they are on their own, when compared to 2018 it’s clear that industries like ours still need a little more time to recover. 2018’s edition had 892 companies and 33,710 visitors from 143 countries, so we’ll have to wait and see if Interclean Amsterdam 2024 will recover or even surpass these figures.
The numbers aren’t everything, though – it can be very easy to look at the reduced attendance and start doubting events like Interclean. I actually believe that, overall, a dip in attendees could be a healthy thing for our industry in the long run. As was the case with the recent London and Manchester Cleaning Shows, the reduced footfall led to more productive discussions between exhibitors
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