most highly developed exhibitions market on the continent And the fact that the event is being hosted in Joburg raises hopes for a further boost to South Africa s exhibition sec tor A kind of blueprint already exists When we staged the event in Bogota three years ago many people hardly gave Colom bia a passing thought recalls Kai Hatten dorf So it was quite an eye opener for many UFI members and generated many positive impacts he refers to the coopera tion between Koelnmesse and Corferias among other things As UFI members show a great interest in Africa an Africa Focus Session is on the agenda of the annual UFI congress After all the African Spirit is an exciting mix of pragmatism and innovation This session is to communicate knowledge and offer an op portunity to establish relevant contacts with Africa It will provide insights into the African business world both the myths and realities and risks and opportunities There will be discussions on whether Africa is real ly a united continent and open for business and about whether infrastructure and part nerships are barriers or opportunities This focus on Africa as a topic is a novelty points out Hattendorf In the past we didn t always have the space for regional issues like this at our global event But this time it be came possible because additional slots were created Internal meetings and special events like the Xchange Sessions will already take place on Wednesday and for the first time we will also be opening up Friday af ternoon with the Africa Focus Session ex plains Kai Hattendorf So in total we are offering almost a full day of additional con tent Hence there will be more contents and even more networking opportunities at Sand ton Convention Centre just outside Johan nesburg The Special Interest Group Ses sions which were very successful in 2016 will also be continued This year s themes in clude Large Venues Government Pavil ions Digital Disruption and Human Re sources Moreover the current UFI Award winners will present their cutting edge solu tions There will also be a panel session on changing formats Face to Face is growing compared to other marketing instruments observes Kai Hattendorf The ability to adapt to customer expectations was and al ways will be the strong point of fairs Cur rently some sectors are under noticeable pressure to change For example this leads to new hall layout plans new dates or even completely new formats These measures are to improve the prospects of success ac cording to the headline motto of the congress programme for Johannesburg Raising the Odds www ufi org PB FOCUS 32 TradeFairs Internation al 3 2017 Heading in the right direction Craig Newman CEO of Johannes burg Expo Centre talks about trade fairs in South Africa and his goals as future UFI Incoming President How has the South African exhibition in dustry developed over the last five years and what are the reasons for this devel opment Our exhibition industry has grown signifi cantly over the last 5 years Thanks to fur ther knowledge and experience gained for stakeholders and growth of associations in the industry we have been able to increase standards and improve on all working ele ments within an exhibition This has led to an increase in the number of new exhibi tions as well as a continued improvement of current events The exhibition industry is heading in the right direction and will con tinue this growth in the coming years Could you please give us an example of such a trade show Bauma Conexpo is a great example of how exhibitions have grown in South Africa The mining and construction exhibition is staged at our Expo Centre in Johannes burg It entered the South African market in 2013 and has already established itself as the top event in sub Saharan Africa You will serve the UFI as Incoming Presi dent as of 2018 What topics are impor tant to you One of the main areas of focus is to in crease awareness in South Africa and Africa about the potential our regions have We will also try to grow Africa s involvement within the UFI and in the international mar kets Africa represents the next frontier for growth and development for the UFI I be lieve that this is the perfect time to host the prestigious UFI global congress UFI Präsident Andreas Gruchow und Craig Newman Chef des Johannesburg Expo Centre unterschrei ben die Kongressvereinbarung Andreas Gruchow UFI President and Craig Newman CEO Johannesburg Expo Centre signing the congress hosting contract Ph ot o U FI

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