An economic ripple effect equal to 278 million euros (+15% compared to 2023, the year of the Euroluce Biennale), the annual record for digital spending (+18%), a number of international visitors at peak levels, a marked increase in accommodation rates for hotels and short-term rentals: these are just some of the figures emerging from the second edition of (Eco) Sistema Design Milano, the Annual Report of the Salone del Mobile.Milano that analyzes the impact of the Exhibition and the Design Week on the city, presented last December 19 at the Piccolo Teatro Melato in Milan.

Driving the numbers was the 2025 edition of the Salone, which recorded 302,786 attendances from 160 countries at the Rho Fiera Milano exhibition district, while in the city the program of the Milano Design Week saw a 25.7% increase in events compared to 2024, for a total of 1,667 events.

(Eco) Sistema Design Milano - Annual Report 2025 presentation 

From left: Francesco Zurlo, Full Professor, Politecnico di Milano,  Alessia Cappello, Councillor for Economic Development and Labour Policies, with responsibility for Fashion and Design, Municipality of Milan,  Maria Porro, President, Salone del Mobile.Milano,  Gianpiero Carocci Silvagni, Head of Innovative Solutions Marketing, Vodafone Business, and Andrea Cabrini, Director, Class CNBC 

Annual Report, a shared laboratory

The Report 2025 — 320 pages, 87 charts and figures — is based on data shared by 22 public and private data holders, 861 field observations collected during the Design Week, to which are added the analyses and reflections of 31 contributors. Also this year, the research project conceived and promoted by the Salone del Mobile.Milano entrusted the interpretation of the data to the Department of Design of the Politecnico di Milano with the general curatorship of Susanna Legrenzi, Press & Communication Strategy Advisor of the Salone.

Two novelties in the 2025 edition: analysis of urban flows from mobile network data and the first structured focus on cultural design production: 533 entities mapped for the first time.

“The 2025 figures — stated Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano — confirm Salone as a major international draw for a growing ecosystem: more international, more complex, increasingly interdependent with the territory, with its resources and services. The Annual Report is a shared laboratory that, every year, returns an increasingly accurate document of how Milan changes when the culture of design becomes an economic, urban and cultural infrastructure.”

(Eco) Sistema Design Milano - Annual Report 2025 presentation 

“The Salone del Mobile.Milano demonstrates, once again, its capacity for aggregation and sharing, but also responsibility and attention towards the territory and the design professionals who have grown together with the Exhibition — added Claudio Feltrin, President of FederlegnoArredo — Because the Salone is much more than a fair; it is a permanent laboratory in which industry and design dialogue to create added value for the supply chain it represents, strengthening the sector’s ability to engage and interact with international markets.” 

The Salone del Mobile model

As Susanna Legrenzi, curator of the research and the Report, explains, “(Eco) Sistema Design Milano was born as an act of collective construction: not an accounting exercise, but a platform that connects data, phenomena and different actors”.

Divided into six sections, the Annual Report opens with a reflection on the “Salone” model and the main indicators of the Exhibition: 2,103 exhibitors from 37 countries, of which 259 were first-time participants or returning exhibitors, a share of foreign operators equal to 68% out of over 302,000 total attendances and more than 1.3 million interactions generated through matchmaking activities between companies and professionals. 

Milano Design Week 2025: an intense creative system

The 2025 Report records 1,093 cataloged initiatives, 861 observed, equal to 51.6% of the total events in the MDW 2025 program detected by the Municipality of Milan.

“With 25.7% more events than in 2024, the Milano Design Week 2025 shows all the vitality — and at the same time the tensions — of the Milanese ecosystem: a dense, interconnected creative system, capable of generating value, but also exposed to saturation, trivialization and growing pressures on its cultural authenticity,” said Francesco Zurlo, Dean of the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano. 

On the urban level, the research portrays a city that during Design Week behaves like a widespread exhibition stage, characterized by strong concentrations and new spatial hierarchies. The NILs (Local Identity Nuclei) Duomo and Brera emerge as absolute hubs of the program, accounting for 53% of observed events between them: 323 initiatives in the first and 257 in the second.

“Salone del Mobile.Milano and the Design Week constitute a unique device on the global scene: not only a professional showcase, but an urban laboratory in which the entire city becomes a space for experimentation,” concluded Stefano Maffei and Francesco Zurlo, Professors of the Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano.

Annual Report, Salone del Mobile.Milano 2025, (Eco) Sistema Design Milano

Salone del Mobile and Design Week: impact on the territory

On the tourism front, the figures of the Annual Report 2025 confirm the international vocation of the Salone. According to the Regional Observatory for Tourism and Attractiveness of the Lombardy Region, during the week of April 7–13, 2025, Milan recorded a total of 136,157 arrivals, of which 80.2% were foreigners (+4.5% compared to the 2024 edition), while Italian arrivals showed a slight decline (-1.9%). Overnight stays amounted to 412,500 in the city (+11.4%) and 543,565 in the province (+13.7%), with an average stay in Milan rising from 2.81 to 3.03 nights.

Sistema Design Milano, the sector’s hub

Also in the second edition of the Annual Report, the Sistema Design Milano confirms itself as one of the structural assets of the urban economy. According to the latest elaborations by Fondazione Symbola and the Tagliacarne Institute based on ISTAT–ASIA data, 7,360 entities operate between Milan and the province — companies, sole proprietorships, freelance professionals and self-employed workers specialized in design activities — an increase of 8.4% compared to the last survey.

The new ATECO 2025 classification made it possible to geolocate 2,556 design companies: the analysis shows that 74% are active in the Municipality of Milan, especially in central areas and the inner ring. In this context, Milan confirms itself as the sector’s hub: one in two Lombardy design firms and one in seven Italian design firms operate here, with a significant presence of companies led by young people, foreign nationals and women.

(Eco) Sistema Design Milano - Annual Report 2025 presentation Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato, Milan