Turin, November 4th 2005 – After the GMF 2004 and the GMF 2005 the publishing house Pianeta Srl, worldwide leader in information about exhibitions and congresses (it owns the most complete and up-to-date trade fair database) recently published the online version of the GMF 05/06, whose cover and cover story are devoted to the new exhibition ground of Fiera Milano.

"We made this decision – as Mr Giovanni Paparo, Governing Director and Editor-in-Chief of PRISMA magazine
and GMF, explains – to make possible a deep knowledge of the International Trade Show Directory by all who are interested in. Since the price of the volume is considerable (but lower than the competitors' ones, whose products are also less rich in information) we think it is fair to enable our potential customers to compare the products, if they have also another directory."

In the portal www.expofairs.com there is also a detailed description of the GMF, which is useful also for our potential advertisers, who can evaluate the product's goodness and find useful information for their advertising.

"Obviously we had to use some contrivance – continues Mr Paparo – to avoid that the online consulation of the GMF penalizes buying the hard copy. So, while the GMF 2004 is entirely reproduced, the GMF 2005 and the GMF 05/06 are reproduced, at the moment, without the trade fair calenders."

On the contrary, Part I is entirely reproduced, which contains a group of articles, each edition wider and wider, describing the interantional exhibition system. 

Very interesting are also the Indexes of suppliers, which are included in Part V and devoted to Exhibition and congress venues, Stanbuilding and Exhibition service provider. Those pages are also separately reproduced on the portal, so to make easier their consultation and their being indexed by searching tools. For all these reasons advertising in those pages is particulary useful.

"With fieramilano and fieramilanocity (p. 20) – says Mr Paparo in the editorial – Europe has an exhibition-congress system, setting the quality, functional and aesthetic standards on an international level. Now it’s the turn of Italy to provide a substantial contribution to the Europe’s success in the global exhibition market, where the competition from Asian coutries is getting more and more vital; moreover, within 2006 in Italy the new Rome exhibiton complex will be ready, on the Rome-Fiumicino route.

The signs of recovery from the German exhibitions (the European champions) are encouraging, and point at two giudelines of the biggest turnover growth: the widening of offered services and the organization of one own’s exhibitions abroad (see Auma article at p. 38).

Emeca (p. 40) shows its determination to “defend and relaunch European exhibition centres and the unique wealth of professionalism acquired in many decades of success” and to “promote the quality of exhibition centres, services and trade fairs as the key to the success of Europe in the global exhibition market”. Special attention will be paid, says the new elected president Piergiacomo Ferrari, “to the development of affinities between members in the context of a shared strategy of attack against the non-EU areas.”

The French specialized trade fairs (p. 41) are getting more and more international: “today’s visitors expect world-class supply, and the internationalization of supply gives rise to the supply of visitors”, internationalization is the major factor in the progress of the French exhibitions.

Our survey of the European exhibitions  goes on with NürnbergMesse, the most dynamic one in Germany, which inaugurated a short time ago the new CNN Ost congress centre, and Messe Frankfurt, the greatest German exhibition venue and international leader, recording a very successful first 2005 semester, and announcing a 300 million euros investment in the next five years, so to make the exhibition venue an even more interesting and competitive one.

The presentation of the Hungarian exhibition system (p. 46) and of its main actor Hungexpo will follow, with an interview to the director János Barabá, while (p. 48) Sergey Alexeev, Jsc Lenexpo’s general director (St. Petersburg) explains to our readers the characteristics of the Russian exhibition market. Then it’s Ukraine’s turn, whose exhibition activity is described by the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Corrado Peraboni, president of the Ufi European Chapter (p. 50) inlustrates the relations between the UE enlargement and the exhibition system. Then we find the Feria de Madrid (p. 54) and the reasons of its success, described by the Ifema general director Fermín Lucas.

To the new challenges for the Italian exhibition system the Comitato Fiere Industria devoted a congress, from which important recommendations emerged (p. 54). The survey concludes with an interview to the new president of Fiere di Parma, Franco Boni, an article about the fair of Vicenza (p. 61) and an interview to the Piacenza Expo’s director, Raul Barbieri.