Wrapping Up an Outstanding Year. Exhibition and exhibition business news for Ukraine and all over the world

A year passes so quickly. Soon we will be gathering in Versailles for our 74th UFI Congress and with it my mandate as your UFI President will come to an end. For UFI, and for me, this has been an exciting and productive year. Our UFI PIN Code has been applied effectively around the world. We’ve provided new Promotion, Information and Networking opportunities in all regions. And our UFI activities and programmes have reached out to exhibition professionals at all levels.

UFI membership continues to boom. In one year we have grown from membership in 72 to 83 countries. In large part this is due to the integration of the subsidiaries of our members in the new “Group” category. As UFI reaches out to encompass these new members, our global influence on industry quality programmes and standards continues to increase as well.

At the same time we have been developing new research to better understand and position our industry within the marketing mix. Our studies on Asia/Pacific, the Middle East, Turkey and India have filled an information void. At the 2007 UFI Congress you will receive the findings of our major research effort to develop a “World Map of Exhibition Venues”. The WMEV study provides the first ever global picture of all exhibition venues with a minimum of 5,000 sqm of indoor exhibition space and provides a projection of developments planned by 2010. The data was collected from venues and national associations, and if some results simply confirm our “feelings”, others were not anticipated at all! It is solid research of this nature which has established UFI as THE benchmark for accurate exhibition industry figures at the international level.

Our UFI Focus meetings continue to provide UFI members with targeted information on timely issues for our industry. This year we held our first UFI Open Seminar in the Middle East. Open to all exhibition professionals, UFI built on the successful brand of our Open Seminars in Europe and Asia to develop this new regional event. In Versailles next month, we will organize our first “Think Tank” for our Group Member CEOs. Our UFI event programme is now providing the exhibition industry with an average of one valuable event each month. UFI has aggressively taken the steps required to successfully meet your information and networking needs.

From our Exhibition Management Degree programmes in Bangkok and Dubai to our Second International Summer University in Köln, UFI has provided our industry with learning opportunities around the globe. New EMD programmes are soon to be announced for Asia and Eastern Europe. These programmes are key to ensuring that our exhibition professionals are pushed to the highest standards.

In the past year I’ve had the honour and the privilege to represent UFI and the exhibition industry in a number of high level forums. The acknowledged recognition and respect of our association, our programmes, standards and events - and our membership quality - is impressive. For now though, let’s consider the 74th UFI Congress as another outstanding PIN opportunity.

UFI President 2007 Jochen Witt