The Salone del Mobile in Milan presented the second edition of its Report on Milan Design Week. The research was carried out by the Salone in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano. The University also deployed, among other resources, field observation, thanks to the involvement of 100 students from the Politecnico di Milano’s Schools of Design and Architecture.
A large section is of course dedicated to the Salone del Mobile.Milano, but the research also devotes considerable space to side events, which make the biggest Design Show in the world.

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The impact of Milan Design Week on the city of Milan

The Report is a very thorough piece of work, which allows for an assessment of the actual impact of Milan Design Week on the city, analyzing traffic flows, events, and cultural production. It provides interesting insights for a wide range of activities. The report provides a fairly accurate picture of how many visitors arrive in Milan, how they travel to the Fair, and how they get around the city. It also provides information on the age and interests of Milan Design Week tourists.

Milan Design Week 2025 events

The Politecnico survey provides a quantitative and qualitative overview of the distribution of events. The results offer a series of insights that can be very useful for anyone planning to organize an event at the Fuorisalone in Milan.
According to the report, in 2025, the City of Milan declared a number of 1,667 Fuorisalone events (the number varies depending on who conducted the census; this is the total number from the City of Milan’s program). The events listed on the Fuorisalone.it website, on the other hand, numbered 1,067.
Compared to 2024, this represents an increase of 25.7%; to get an idea of the increase over the years, the events declared by the Municipality of Milan in 2019 were 986, 650 in 2021, 825 in 2022, 1,200 in 2023, and 1,326 in 2024.

The areas with the highest density of events

Thanks to an analysis carried out using Fastweb-Vodafone data (mobile network operators), the Salone Report provides an overview of traffic flows to the design districts, as well as the presence of Italians and foreigners.
In 2025, the Brera Design District (257 events) recorded a 51.9% increase in foot traffic. The Porta Genova area – the gateway to the Via Tortona area – grew by 41.3%, while Parco Sempione – the Triennale area – recorded a +25.4% increase.

In the Sarpi area, home to the ADI Design Museum and Fabbrica del Vapore, foot traffic increased by 12.2%, while Corso Magenta and Via San Vittore – in the 5VIE district – saw an increase of 9.6%. (5VIE is the name of an intersection of five narrow streets between Piazza Cordusio and Corso Magenta, so part of the traffic in the Duomo area is also involved. Although not directly involved in Milan Design Week, the Duomo area recorded an increase of 19.3%.)

The areas Porta Garibaldi – Porta Nuova (+16.2%), Buenos Aires – Porta Venezia – Porta Monforte (+7.9%), and Stazione Centrale – Ponte Seveso (+7.4%) host Milan Design Week events, but they are also areas of daily commuting, so traffic here is only amplified, not overloaded.

The further out you go towards the suburbs, the less traffic increases. Villapizzone – Cagnola – Bovisasca (Certosa District) saw an increase of 2.3%; Stadera – Chiesa Rossa – Quartiere Torretta – Conca Fallata (Stadera Design District_SDD recorded an increase of 2.8%.

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The catalyst events

There was a very significant increase in traffic flows in some areas of the Milan City Council’s events program, which considers journeys within a 500-meter radius of the event. The areas are Interni-Università degli Studi, DDDesign (Durini Design District), Mosca Partners – Design Variations (Palazzo Litta), Alcova (Varedo), as well as the areas of Tortona and 5VIE; here, 323 events in total. The average growth in traffic flows varied between +20% and +50%, with peaks of 49.2% for the Interni event and +48% for DDDesign (Durini Design District).

Analysis of foreign SIM cards shows that the foreign presence at Alcova events is overwhelmingly in the majority.
The data also allows us to establish the urban and social nature of Milan Design Week (not just the Salone del Mobile, therefore). The highest volume of users is concentrated between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., but the 8 p.m. to midnight slot still accounts for a quarter of all journeys.

Milan Design Districts: the co-visits during Milan Design Week 

The analysis of co-visits is also interesting. The graphs represent the co-visit flows between the Design Week Districts in the city during the Salone del Mobile 2025, highlighting some relevant co-visit patterns, showing the total number of visitors and the percentage breakdown between Italian and foreign visitors. The co-visit maps offer a new insight into the audience’s behavior and mobility, highlighting the spontaneous connections between different districts and events. The values represent cross-flows resulting from successive movements within the same 48-hour period.

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The event content distribution

The Report also examined event content in depth, analyzing 781 events in detail. This observation allowed us to determine how many industrial product launches, small-scale productions, interior design projects, new materials, interactive installations and experiences, publishing projects, design technologies, and other kinds of projects there were. Even more interestingly, the research allowed to set the distribution of contents for each area of interest. (see image)

The research carried out by Salone del Mobile with the Milan Polytechnic therefore shows how close the relationship between the Fair, Fuorisalone, and the city of Milan is. In fact, in my book on the History of Fuorisalone, I tried to highlight how Fuorisalone changed as Milan changed. Now it would be time to take a next step, a study of the relationship between residents and the many events, to see how the city has changed with the development of Milan Design Week. All topics of great interest.