Geared to growth from head to foot
Spain is currently one of the fastest-growing exhibition markets in Europe. With massive investment in their venues and new shows, the Spanish exhibition companies are poised further to boost their sales.
Exhibition makers in Spain are in an upbeat mood. And they have every reason to be, as a glance at the key economic indicators, measured by the AFE Association of Spanish Fairs (Asociación de Ferias Españolas), shows. For the fourth year in a row more than 15 million exhibition visitors made their way to Spain; according to provisional AFE statistics the number of exhibitors in 2005 climbed more than two percent on the reference year 2003 to 117,750. Exhibition space on Spanish soil is growing accordingly. A prime example of this development is Madrid's exhibition company IFEMA. With record sales of EUR 154.2 million in 2004 IFEMA announced its best exhibition performance since its foundation 26 years ago. There was no complaint about 2005 either: the board of IFEMA reports sales of EUR 146.7 million last year, an almost 11 % jump on 2003. 71 fairs with more than 20,900 exhibitors took place in 2005, with 22 % of these exhibitors sourced from abroad. "In 2005 we generated profits of EUR 23.3 million, making us one of the most profitable exhibition companies in Europe," IFEMA's director general, Fermín Lucas, proudly reports.The exhibition makers in the capital share this positive business trend with other Spanish exhibition companies. The major expo organisers in Catalonia, for instance, are also steering an expansive course. In July 2005 the board of Fira Barcelona approved the growth plan which includes completion of construction work on the Gran Vía M2 site in 2009. The final development stage will cost EUR 323 million, finishing a project with a total investment volume of EUR 900 million. When completed the site will comprise six pavilions in all featuring altogether 240,000 m2 of exhibition space, an additional complex for big-ticket events for up to 3,000 people and 5,000 parking lots. This development will transform Fira Barcelona into one of the biggest exhibition centres in Europe. Another success story, this time on the Mediterranean coast, is Spain's oldest exhibition company, Feria Valencia. With 231,000 m2 divided among eight pavilions, Valencia can currently boast the most exhibition space in Spain. In the past two years the exhibition centre has expanded its facilities for meetings and congresses by 340 %. This puts Feria Valencia right in line with the AFE, which is preaching the virtues of events business as an additional source of revenue alongside pure-play rental business. In 2005 the exhibition centre in Valencia notched up five new fairs: the tourism expo TCV, the sales fair Feria de Almonedas, SIF&Co Business Invest Chile, which stands for ties with South America, and Qualimetrics for exhibitors from the field of quality assurance and measurement. In November Feria Valencia will host Serproma for the first time, a trade fair for senior citizens.Newcomers like Malaga Fair are also riding the Iberian wave of success. Just two years young, the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos exhibition centre on the Costa del Sol comprises 17,000 m2 of exhibition space. In 2004 it hosted 140 events, including 14 exhibitions. The Andalusian exhibition organisers can be proud of themselves, with sales of EUR 4.47 million, 1,400 exhibitors, and roughly a million visitors. And the growth rates for the first half of 2005 flag a more than positive result for the full year. The number of exhibitors alone soared 81 % over the same year-earlier period to 1,209 and the number of visitors to more than 700,000, up 21 %. Valerie Möhring
m+a report Nr.2 / 2006 vom 24.03.2006
m+a report vom 24. März 2006