Nürnbergmesse hosted this autumn's General Assembly in Athens, Greece, to highlight its latest acquisition, the Greek organiser Forum, and to put the growing Greek exhibition market into the spotlight. EMECA board members met and exchanged with the president and vice president of the newly formed SOKEE, the Greek Exhibition Industry Association. "2022 is a good year in terms of number of exhibitions, which shows a quick recovery for our industry. Most EMECA members will soon be approaching prepandemic results," explains Ricard Zapatero, EMECA president.
„Most EMECA members will soon be approaching prepandemic results“
Ricard Zapatero, EMECA president
In Europe, full recovery in terms of turnover will be reached already in 2023 for most members. Profits, however, will take more time to come back to prepandemic levels. Additionally, and in parallel to the very positive signs, the EMECA venues and exhibition business are struggling with a number of challenges, such as remaining restrictions for travel from Asia, potential pandemic measures during the winter, inflation, high costs for staff and materials, energy prices, effects of the Russian war in Ukraine and uncertainty in general. On the digital side, guest speaker Fabian Nappenbach, director of product marketing EMEA at HTC, presented an overview of the state of the art in metaverse technology, applications and business opportunities to the EMECA General Assembly. It was followed by a vivid discussion on potential use cases, acceptance and costs. Members agreed that experimenting and following closely the developments will be of great importance.
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