AEFI – ITALIAN EXHIBITION AND TRADE FAIR ASSOCIATION: PROUD OF THE NEW APPOINTMENT AN IMPORTANT RECOGNITION FOR OUR COUNTRY

The AEFI – Italian Exhibition and Trade Fair Association – applauds the appointments of UFI: the Italian Corrado Peraboni of the Fiera Milano Group is the new president of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, which has 740 members from 85 countries.
The appointment was made official within the 84th Annual Congress of the UFI, which ran until Saturday, 4 November in Johannesburg.

In confirmation of the value of the Italian trade fair sector within the international context, in addition to the appointment of an Italian President, three representatives of Italian trade fairs have been appointed to the new UFI Board of Directors: Giorgio Contini, International Director at BolognaFiere, Matteo Marzotto, Executive Vice President of Italian Exhibition Group and Giovanni Mantovani, Veronafiere CEO, who will continue in his role as First Vice President of the European Chapter within UFI, also for the next three years.

This constitutes prestigious recognition of our country, which after nearly thirty years returns to the head of the Global Association of the trade fair sector: Italy will be able to make its contribution to the internationalisation of the system and advancement and promotion of Trade Fairs at an international level.

Since its foundation in 1925, UFI has had four Italian presidents: Cesare Nava (Fiera Milano) from 1926 to 1931; Piers Puricelli (Fiera Milano), from 1931 to 1939; Luciano Dal Falco (Torino Esposizioni), from 1967 to 1973; Carlo G. Bertolotti (E.A. Fiera di Verona), from 1985 to 1989.

 

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 and India, 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 around 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.