GREAT SUCCESS FOR THE THIRD “GLOBAL EXHIBITIONS DAY” YESTERDAY
The third Global Exhibitions Day, celebrated yesterday in 85 countries, ended with great success.
“The power of Italian trade fairs”, the event organised for the occasion by AEFI – Italian Exhibition and Trade Fair Association – at Sala del Tempio di Adriano, Chamber of Commerce in Rome – featured a morning dedicated to institutional contributions and continued with two round tables to animate the second part of the day. The afternoon’s activities laid a particular emphasis on trade fairs as places for meeting and exchanging ideas and launching hubs for creativity and talent.
The afternoon opened with the contribution from Loredana Sarti, General Secretary of AEFI, who illustrated the project developed by the Association to interpret the messages launched by UFI – The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry for this third Global Exhibitions Day, summarised in the words advocacy and talent.
“This year we worked to underscore the role of Italian trade fairs not only as a driver for the development of the economy, but also as a place to meet Italian creativity, recognised and appreciated worldwide, and an opportunity to highlight the new talents of this creativity,” stressed AEFI’s General Secretary.
Video storytelling presented Italian trade fairs as occasions for innovative idea and companies interested in new proposals to meet, but also as places where people are at the heart of the activities, since they represent talents, or develop them and present them at trade fairs. People at trade fairs meet, get up to date and engage in discussion, create business relationships, but also work at trade fairs, helping to create and manage exhibitions.
“We worked around the concepts of Talents in Exhibitions and Exhibitions of Talents,” stressed Loredana Sarti, “producing a series of videos that could relate creative or entrepreneurial talents and the prospects for development offered by fairs, which represent a real multiplier of activities and a perfect showcase for launching new creativity.”
Of particular interest is the opinion of the foreign operators, from Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, India, Russia and the UK, thanks to the support of the Italian Trade Agency. Carlo D’Goes of the Brazilian Franchising Association, Feiras e Negócios (Brazil), Trixie LohMirmand of SVP, Events Management, Dubai World Trade Centre (United Arab Emirates), Rajiv Malhotra of LEMS Lotus Exhibitions&Marketing Services (India), Elena Chetyrkina of R&C Market Research Company (Russia) and Iain Stirling of Exhibition World (UK) told the story of their own experiences and the activities that they develop to bring out and offer opportunities to talented young people. Great appreciation was expressed for Italian creativity and for our trade fair model, increasingly directed towards direct organisation of the events on the part of districts.
There was lively and stimulating debate between some testimonials whose creative and/or entrepreneurial talent has benefited from and has been launched from attendance at Italian trade fair events (Giovanna Musumeci, Collaborator in the national “Carlo Pozzi – The art of gelato on show” competition; Bianca Guscelli, Product Manager and CEO of Brandimarte) and the perspective and specific qualities of the trade fairs that launch these talents (Donatella Chiodo, President of Mostra d’Oltremare; Giuseppe Oliviero, CEO of Mostra d’Oltremare; Fausto Bortolot, Chairman of International Gelato Exhibition Longarone).
The day ended with the “Youth, projects and future” round table, with important contributions from the academic world on the role of trade fairs in creating a future for young people: Guido Fabiani, Professor Emeritus, University of Rome Three; Raffaele Cercola, Professor of strategic marketing, Luigi Vanvitelli University of Campania; Francesca Golfetto, Professor of strategic marketing, Bocconi University; Edoardo Staiti, Professor of marketing, Sacro Cuore Catholic University of Milan; Giovanna Cassese, President of ISIA Faenza; Enrica Baccini, Study and Development Area Manager, Fondazione Fiera Milano; Sara Bullini, Head of Touch Fair Architecture & Exhibit Space Master’s, IUAV University of Venice.
The exchange brought out various themes and points for reflection, such as the increasing need to complete competences because, in the field of trade fairs, creativity concerns not only the product exhibited but also the concept of the event, the presentation and the installation. It is also essential to standardise knowledge, generate greater synergy between training and business, and trade fairs have a strategic role in this.
For AEFI, Global Exhibitions Day 2018 represented a point of departure for the launch of new activities, with the aim of contributing to stimulate and support the academic community in developing the future of young people.
In ending the session, AEFI Chairman Ettore Riello once more called to the attention of the institutions the role of Trade Fairs as a tool in industrial policy: “Our fairs, which generate a considerable turnover and give rise to 50% of exports from the Italian businesses that attend, are a genuine driver of our economy and should be considered an investment for the country. I hope that public bodies will continue to support them and that the new government appreciates the real value of trade fairs, supporting them with an appropriate level of taxation with respect to the Italian IMU.”
AEFI – Associazione Esposizioni e Fiere Italiane, a private non-profit Association, was established in 1983 with the goal of generating synergies between the most important Italian exhibition districts. AEFI would like to be seen as a privileged partner for operators and institutions alike, and its role is to support members through the development of activities and programmes in the sphere of training, marketing, promotion and research, as well as to provide services for trade fairs through the activities of its Committees: Exhibition Hub Technical Committee, Legal-Administrative Committee, Internationalisation Committee and Trade Fairs Network Committee.
On the internationalization front, AEFI supports members thanks to agreements with strategic markets. To date, partnerships have been agreed with Iran, Taiwan, Lebanon, India, Thailand and South Africa, with AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, and with CENTREX, the International Exhibition Statistics Union. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with SACE and SIMEST.
AEFI has promoted the foundation of ISFCert, the Certification Institute for Exhibition Industry Statistics which, through rigorous methodologies, enables Italian organisers to present and recognise standardised data, in the name of transparency and reliability.
AEFI represents Italian trade fairs in UFI – Union of International Fairs. Chaired by Ettore Riello, AEFI includes 35 member exhibition districts, which organise over 1,000 events a year over an overall exhibition area of 4.2 million square metres. Nearly all international and national trade fairs which take place each year in Italy are held in AEFI-member exhibition districts.