On Wednesday, 21 May, the city of Chemnitz received the VITALIA Award from the Cologne Institute for Retail Research (IFH) - a prize for the municipality that best manages to receive excellent ratings from local visitors for its own city centre nationwide.
In the "City Talks" initiated by IFH Cologne, the focus was on how administration, retail, business and committed local stakeholders - in the face of ongoing structural change and changing consumer habits - are taking responsibility together and developing innovative solutions for vibrant city centres. Six cities with successful city centre revitalisation concepts were honoured.
Chemnitz was able to impress with outstanding ratings and was recognised as a nationwide leader. The explanatory statement reads: "The city of Chemnitz has set an impressive example for successful city centre revitalisation with its continuous positive development over the last few years. As the icing on the cake, Chemnitz not only received the best score (1.4) among all participating cities from its local passers-by in a nationwide comparison as part of the "Vital City Centres 2024" study, but also scored highly in the categories of quality of stay and mobility."
"Chemnitz impressively demonstrates that those who actively shape transformation are rewarded. City administration, business, trade and initiatives have joined forces to create a city centre that invites you to linger. New restaurants, green quiet zones, modern design and a lively event programme make Chemnitz noticeably more attractive today," says Boris Hedde, Managing Director of IFH Cologne.
In addition to the VITALIA Award, the VitalCityAward was also presented at the "City Talks". It honours city centres with the highest vitality index, which measures the ratio of visitor frequency to the number of inhabitants. The cities of Limburg, Passau, Ulm, Wiesbaden and Stuttgart emerged as winners in five city centre size categories.
VITALIA Award
The VITALIA Award from IFH Cologne honours the municipality that best manages to receive excellent ratings from local visitors for its own city centre nationwide. Both the overall score and the implementation in individual categories such as mobility or quality of stay are taken into account. Germany's largest city centre survey, "Vitale Innenstädte", which is based on 69,000 personal interviews in over 100 city centres, is used to measure success.
IFH Cologne
IFH Cologne is the point of contact for data, analyses and strategies for companies and retail locations.