TRADE FAIRS: MAURIZIO DANESE UNANIMOUSLY CONFIRMED AS AEFI PRESIDENT
DANESE: WITH ORGANISERS JOINING UNITED SECTOR AND STRONG REPRESENTATION. WE ARE WORKING WITH THE GOVERNMENT TO INNOVATE THE EXHIBITION INDUSTRY
URSO (MINISTER OF ENTERPRISES AND MADE IN ITALY (MIMIT)): IT IS NECESSARY TO GO ABROAD AS ONE WITH A UNITED EXHIBITION SYSTEM
Maurizio Danese has been unanimously confirmed at the helm of Aefi, the leading association for the Italian trade fair system; he will be joined by vice-presidents Simona Rapastella, Antonio Bruzzone, Maurizio Renzo Ermeti and Renato Pujatti. This was decided by the Aefi Assembly, held today at Mimit’s Palazzo Piacentini, after also electing the new Board of Directors attended, among others, by the Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso. Appointed members include, in the “exhibition centre” category, Antonio Bruzzone (managing director of BolognaFiere), Maurizio Renzo Ermeti (president of the Italian exhibition group), Pietro Piccinetti (Sicilia Fiera), Renzo Piraccini (president of Cesena Fiera) and Renato Pujatti (president of Pordenone Fiere). For the “organisers” category, Brenda Bellei (CEO of White), Simona Rapastella (managing director FederUnacoma-Eima) and Silvio Viale (president of Turin International Book Fair).
“The second term definitely looks less complicated, but certainly no less challenging, than the first,” said Aefi president Maurizio Danese, “during which the pandemic imposed a temporary halt on the entire trade fair system. If we are still projecting the growth of the sector it is largely thanks to the country’s institutions, which have understood the role of trade fairs as the main vector of Made in Italy really well, by contributing in a decisive way to the resilience of a system that was almost wiped out in the Covid years. “Today,” concluded the president, who is also CEO of VeronaFiere, “Aefi is reaffirming its mission, by strengthening the unitary representativeness of the exhibition industry. At the same time, it will work alongside the government for a decisive speeding-up in terms of events organised abroad and increasingly opening up the membership to organisers of major events”. Proof of this is the recent growth in new members: in addition to the 40 leading Italian exhibition centres, 13 event organisers representing the various sectors of the made-in-Italy industry have now joined.
Adolfo Urso (Mimit) said: “We must improve our ability to project ourselves on international markets: united we stand, divided we fall. This emblematic slogan also applies to the Italian trade fair system. We need to work together to create a single force that can enable trade fairs to present themselves as a united front abroad. The objective is to bring their distinctive features into the system. The ministry,” concluded Urso, “is willing to work with the sector to make Italy globally more competitive”.
According to Aefi, 2023 will close with further growth in the Italian exhibition sector, with the prospect of matching the 2019 figures set for 2024. In fact, 9.64 million square metres of exhibition space will be used this year, 10% more than 2022 but still 10% less than 2019. Almost 125 thousand trade fair exhibitors and about 18 million visitors, an increase compared to last year (+20%) but also with respect to the 2019 benchmark (+4%), demonstrating how the b2b trade fair sector is proving to be a fundamental lever for Italian business. There were 531 events divided between national (264) and international (267). Among the latter, the textile, clothing, fashion sectors stood out (53 trade fairs), followed by food, beverages, hospitality (42), sports, art, entertainment (38) and industry, technology, mechanics (30); with Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Veneto accounting for 70% of the international trade fairs organised in Italy. According to the Prometeia survey carried out last year, the Italian trade fair system (2nd in Europe and 4th in the world) represents a business multiplier, with a measurable impact on the territories of 22.5 billion euros a year. This is also an important driver in terms of trade fair tourism, which Prometeia has calculated to be worth more than 10 billion euro a year, corresponding to an added value of 4.8 billion euro.
Maurizio Danese, President of Aefi – Italian Exhibition & Trade Fair Association.
Maurizio Danese has been Managing Director of Veronafiere Spa since 16 June 2022. In 1987 he founded and managed his first company, Center Catering Spa, and in the following years acquired extensive experience in major companies in Veneto and Emilia in the food & wine sector. Today he is vice-president of Pregis Spa, a major company in the food service sector, specialising in the supply of food products to the horeca channel. In October 2015, he was appointed to the presidency of Veronafiere, becoming the main architect of its transformation from an entity to a joint-stock company in 2016. In 2019, after having held the position of vice-president in the previous two-year period, he took over the presidency of Aefi ad interim, which was confirmed in 2020.