Above: Plans for Hitex's new Hall 4 (Hyderabad, India)
One of the things I’m most looking forward to learning about at UFI’s debut Latin American event in September, is plans for major venue development in the region. It’s not because I’m a huge fan of buildings you can see from space, it’s because venue development tends to happen only after public sector buy-in – and so it follows that venue development is an indication of a government’s commitment to the virtues of a burgeoning exhibition industry.
And Latin America is a place in need of good venues. As Informa Brazil’s Marco Basso pointed out to me recently, there is a strong concentration of trade shows in the capital city São Paulo, particularly in the B2B market, and among reasons including business concentration, hotels availability and logistics, there are simply better exhibition venues.
“The main potential new venue capability is Anhembi, which used to be the largest venue in Brazil,” he explained. “However, due to its deterioration and the introduction of the recently licensed São Paulo Expo by GL events, Anhembi lost most of the shows. There is a project to privatize Anhembi that is currently being discussed in SP legislative body, but I don´t see this happening in the short term.”
India faces a similar problem with its aging Pragati Maidan in Delhi, a venue from which UBM is moving some of its show in favour of new space in Greater Noida. The organiser has already moved shows such as CPhI &P-MEC and SATTE to the 80,000sqm India Expo Mart and more may follow.
(To read the full story on the UFI website, click here)