For the first time in thirteen years, Tilburg-Waalwijk has been voted Logistic Hotspot of the Year. The region scored highly in the election due to the availability of personnel and the cooperation of regional and local authorities in facilitating logistics activity.
Tilburg-Waalwijk emerged as the winner during the Logistic Hotspots Summit in Weert, followed by Venlo-Venray and West Brabant, which won the two previous editions. The election, an initiative of Logistiek.nl, is based on a survey completed by a panel of logistics experts.
Personnel and efforts municipality
Tilburg-Waalwijk won the title thanks to the availability of sufficient personnel and the cooperation of the government/municipality in facilitating new logistics activities. For the latter criterion in particular, Tilburg-Waalwijk garnered the most praise. "The top three is a close call, but Tilburg is definitely on top with its approach," said one of the panelists in his comments.
On the criterion of availability of building land and premises, Tilburg-Waalwijk had to leave a string. Almere-Lelystad-Zeewolde, West Brabant and Venlo-Venray scored better than the Central Brabant region in this area.
Criteria
Besides these three criteria, panel members in the hotspot survey gave their preferred votes to criteria such as: staff motivation, infrastructure availability, accessibility of the logistics hotspot, degree of national e-fulfilment, crossborder e-fulfilment and suitability for national distribution activities.
Fast riser: Almere-Lelystad-Zeewolde
Runner-up this year is the Almere-Lelystad-Zeewolde region. The Flevoland region entered the top five with fourth place, up sharply from 12th place in 2018. The 'logistics hotspot in the making' was frequently in the news last year and this year due to the arrival of Spanish clothing giant Inditex's mega-distribution centre and the development of the new Flevokust port on the IJsselmeer.
