TRADE FAIRS (AEFI): RESOURCE FOR 63% OF ITALIAN EXPORTS
DANESE: TRADE FAIRS MUST BE A TOOL FOR THE GOVERNMENT’S EXTRA-EU ACTION PLAN.
WHITE PAPER ON THE SECTOR PRESENTED ON WORLD EXHIBITIONS DAY
Trade fairs, supply chains, and Italian businesses have always been linked by a common destiny. Suffice it to say that 30% of national production and 63% of national exports are generated by companies active in 5 supply chains (agri-food, technology, fashion-beauty, construction-furniture, and leisure), which are the main focus of the trade fair system’s activities. This partnership must also play a leading role in the Action Plan for Italian Exports to Extra-EU Markets, announced by the Italian Government last March. This is the concise summary contained in the first White Paper on the Italian trade fair system, produced by AEFI (the reference association for the sector) in partnership with Prometeia, which handled the competitive framework and scenario sections. It was presented today at Palazzo Piacentini (Mimit) in Rome on the occasion of the 10th World Exhibitions Day, with the presence of the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso.
The national trade fair industry – the report analyses – is the fourth largest globally (behind China, the United States, and Germany). Including the congress sector, it generates an annual turnover of 4 billion Euros with 17,000 employees. From 2021 to 2024, the overall average annual growth (CAGR at current prices) of the 5 supply chains was +9% – thanks partly to inflationary impulses – a performance that allowed it to recover and exceed pre-Covid levels. However, with the persistence of well-known geopolitical and commercial uncertainties – tariffs primarily – long-term forecasts are more complicated: +2% annually by 2030. Assuming that the evolution of the trade fair system responds to inertial impulses from customer supply chains, the prospective outlook for Italian trade fair players also appears less dynamic, with a CAGR around 1%.
“We are aware,” stated AEFI President Maurizio Danese, “of a role that must be increasingly challenging for us, just as it is for the Government. The goal is to achieve export growth through the acceleration that the Action Plan must impart to non-European markets from now until 2030. Trade fairs – just like Italian companies engaged in recalibrating their commercial targets – have the need and the objective to broaden their scope of action and want to be a fundamental vector of the plan, with the growth of Made in Italy events organised directly in the main target countries”.
There’s plenty of work to be done, as the report argues. Over the past 10 years, the export gap between potential demand and the actual capacity of Italian companies to meet it has been -13%, which is equivalent to over 37 billion Euros of potential left to other exporters. Without significant improvements, Prometeia’s econometric modelling forecasts this gap growing to 18% by 2030. This highlights the importance of an integrated plan involving all relevant offices, including, as AEFI maintains, the flagship trade fair tool and expertise. It’s no coincidence that the Italian trade fair system is present with its own events in 12 of the 30+ target markets outlined in the plan. 90% of Italian events scheduled abroad for 2024-2025 have been (or will be) held in these very countries, from the USA to Brazil, China to the United Arab Emirates, Mexico to South Africa, and Thailand.
In the White Paper‘s section on requests, AEFI identifies four priority areas for intervention: strengthening the internationalisation of trade fairs; simplifying the regulatory framework and related support measures; promoting a plan for infrastructure upgrades; and preparing a package of measures to support and increase SME participation in trade fairs.
Industrial policy and Nationwide System are the keywords guiding the objective of internationalising the Italian trade fair industry. This vision aims to bridge the gap, especially with German and French competitors. Among the primary proposals are the development of partnerships between trade fair players, the strengthening of the Internationalisation Fund, and enhanced coordination between the sector and institutions through the systemic involvement of AEFI, the main representative association. Regulatory simplification is AEFI’s second imperative. Specifically, the White Paper expresses the urgency of unleashing the sector’s potential by reducing bureaucracy and authorisation procedures through a uniform national regulation, overcoming the Consolidated Law on publicly held companies, and reviewing the IMU (municipal property tax) regulations, providing for its exemption or at least a 50% reduction. There’s also a need to include trade fairs in national and local infrastructure agendas to make exhibition districts increasingly competitive and attractive to the market. What’s more, to support greater participation by new SMEs, AEFI calls for the introduction of a medium-to-long-term “Trade Fair Bonus” aimed at newly established companies or those that haven’t participated in trade fair events in the previous year.