More visitors for Hamburg's weekly markets: this catalogue of measures should help

The Cross Innovation Hub of the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft and the district of Hamburg-Mitte have developed a catalogue of measures together with the committee for weekly markets and the Landesverband des Ambulanten Gewerbes und der Schausteller Hamburg e.V. (LAGS). This catalogue contains around 40 recommendations for action to make the weekly markets in the Hamburg-Mitte district more attractive.

What will our weekly markets look like in the future?

With the aim of making the weekly markets more economical and sustainable, the district of Hamburg-Mitte commissioned the Cross Innovation Hub to carry out a cross-innovation process. An interdisciplinary project team was set up under the title "Weekly markets of the future". Representatives from the Cross Innovation Hub, the Committee for Weekly Markets, the district of Hamburg-Mitte and the LAGS, which represents the interests of traders, were involved. The four creative minds Melanie Obrist, Ralf Harder, Jessica Louis and Simone Wendel supported the project team with innovative approaches and their expertise in open idea development.

Brutally local - a catalogue of measures for the future

The result of the project work is a catalogue of measures with around 40 recommendations on how the weekly markets can reach more people. These consider the markets not only as a pure trading centre, but also as a social and cultural meeting place.

• For example, evening markets with new times in the evening from 16:00 - 21:00 could attract a new target group that otherwise visits regular supermarkets.
• Another idea is an ever-changing tasting stall for which no stall rent is charged. The tasting stall gives all Hamburg residents the opportunity to try out their skills as a trader - without any market experience. This makes it easy to bring local products to the weekly market and at the same time ensures more variety in the product range.
• Three different websites currently provide information about the weekly markets in Hamburg. By creating a standardised website, the markets can be presented in a coherent and recognisable way. Visitors will receive all important information at a glance.

Catalogue of measures based on findings from survey

With their basic idea of regional, high-quality and sustainable supply, weekly markets should be more in tune with the times than ever before. However, the Hamburg-Mitte district has been experiencing a contrary trend for several years. Fewer and fewer visitors and traders are coming to the markets. To investigate the declining numbers in more detail, the district and the Cross Innovation Hub launched a non-representative survey of visitors, non-visitors and traders at the start of the project.

This revealed that awareness of the weekly markets is low. Of the 676 non-visitors surveyed, 40 per cent stated that they were not familiar with the weekly market in their district. The respondents see potential for improvement above all in the district's communication via Instagram or the website. The 741 visitors surveyed expressed a particular desire for more regionality and organic products. The survey includes all nine markets in the Hamburg-Mitte district. A total of 1480 people were surveyed.