AEFI PRESENTS THE 2017 TRENDS IN ITALIAN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

AEFI-Italian Exhibition and Trade Fair Association presents the trends, overall and for each sector, in the 2017 Italian international trade fairs, elaborated through the analysis of the data gathered by the Interregional Trade Fair Coordination Body to produce Euro Fair Statistics.
UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, publishes Euro Fair Statistics each year with the data recorded from European trade fairs, a tool that highlights the trends in the sector at both national and European level.
Thanks to the support of 14 bodies in the sector who deal with the collection and guarantee the quality of the statistics supplied, this year’s edition contains certified data of 2,709 exhibitions held in 2017 in 24 European countries: in addition to Italy, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Moldavia, the Netherlands, the Principality of Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary.
Overall, the European events taken into consideration recorded 703,060 exhibitors and 75,9 million visitors, occupying 27.6 million square metres (up 5% compared to 2016) which, according to UFI estimates, constitute approximately 60% of the total European exhibiting area.
The report also shows that 38% of the events examined were addressed to professional visitors, 31% to the general public and 31% to both targets.
As far as Italy is concerned, 2017 registered 188 international exhibitions which in total occupied an area of approximately 3.5 million square metres and animated more than 93,500 exhibitors and around 10 million visitors.
In terms of exhibitors, the sectors of greatest interest for the 188 Italian international exhibitions were textiles-clothing-fashion, food-beverages-hospitality and sports-hobbies-entertainment-art. As far as visitors are concerned, the performance of trade fairs was significant, followed by sports-hobbies-entertainment-art and food, beverages and hospitality. Analysis of the number of exhibitions shows the textiles-clothing-fashion sector in first place, sports-hobbies-entertainment-art second and jewellery-watches-accessories third. As regards exhibition space, on the other hand, heading up the table are the textiles-clothing-fashion fairs, followed by furniture, interior design and sports-hobbies-entertainment-art.
For foreign visitors, the most attractive sectors are furniture, interior design; food, beverages, hospitality and textiles-clothing-fashion.
The data represents an excellent analytical tool for identifying the sectors to keep under control.

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.