AEFI presents THE 2018 TRENDS IN ITALIAN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

The AEFI – Italian Exhibition and Trade Fair Association – presents the trends, overall and for each sector, in the 2018 Italian international trade fairs, elaborated through 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 organisations in the sector which deal with the collection and guarantee the quality of the statistics supplied, this year’s edition contains certified data of 2,673 exhibitions held in 2018 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.

In total, the European exhibitions in question reported, for 2018, 735,508 exhibitors and 75.4 million visitors, with a surface coverage of 28 million sq.m. which, according to UFI, is around 60% of the total European exhibition area.
The report also shows that 38% of the 2,673 events examined were addressed to professional visitors, 31% to the general public and 31% to both targets.

As for Italy, in 2018 191 international events where reported out of the 209 on the calendar, with a coverage of around 3,813,483 sq.m. area and around 97,000 exhibitors and over 10 million visitors, of whom 14.5% came from abroad.

In terms of exhibitors, the sectors of greatest interest for the 191 Italian international exhibitions in 2018 were textiles- clothing-fashion, jewellery-watches-accessories and food-beverages-hospitality.

As for visitors, exhibitions in the sports-hobbies-entertainment, cars-motorbikes sectors were significant, as well as miscellaneous trade fairs, which took first place. Analysis of the number of exhibitions shows the textiles-clothing-fashion sector in first place, sports-hobbies-entertainment-art second and industry-technology-mechanics third. As regards exhibition space, on the other hand, heading up the table are the textiles-clothing-fashion fairs, followed by industry- technology-mechanics and furniture-interior design.

For foreign visitors, the most attractive sectors were the main Made in Italy industries: furniture-interior design, textiles- clothing-fashion and food-beverages-hospitality.

The data represents an excellent analytical tool for professionals who wish to monitor the various sectors.

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 currently has 36 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.

AEFI is 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 internationalisation front, AEFI supports members thanks to agreements with strategic markets. To date, partnerships have been agreed with Iran, Taiwan, Lebanon, India, Thailand, South Africa and Poland, with AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, with CENTREX, the International Exhibition Statistics Union and with EUPIC-EU Project Innovation Center. 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.