Italian exhibition Host, targeted at the international hospitality industry, is one of the world’s trend setters. It presents market previews of products to any audience on the lookout for new business formulas, as well as flagging up new trends.
It prides itself on presenting new layouts and formats, which it offers to a visitor base of industry professionals. Host is one of those events where the pulse of the market can truly be taken, where one meets the competition as well as new and loyal clients. but that’s not all. However, that’s not all, exhibition director Simona Greco tells EW.
What gives your show advantage over your competitors, and how would you like to further diversify the event in the future?
Host has always been the hub for innovation in the HoReCa [hotel, restaurant and cafe] industry. Increasingly, over recent years, we’ve observed chefs becoming protagonists in the innovation process. As the real users of the food equipment industry, though not always the customers financially, they are increasingly involved by companies in research and development initiatives, because they bring in the user’s perspective.
Moreover, innovation today is not only about technology anymore; it is a mix of technical features, design, formats and layouts that strive to meet the evolving requests of an increasingly demanding final customer.
On its side, [new partner] Identità Golose is the hub for creativity and innovation in international cuisine: ours is a partnership of excellences that provides Host’s visitors with an unparalleled range of opportunities to get to know the new trends from all angles.
Any plans to launch associated industry events, perhaps spin-off events? Or to expand the show into new countries and regions?
Host is committed to a continuous internationalisation strategy that focuses in particular on the emerging economies. Within this framework, in cooperation with Tuttofood, the Italian food industry exhibition and part of the Fiera Milano portfolio together with Host, we’ve developed a new trade fair called Food Hospitality World (FHW), that puts together the competencies of our two exhibitions in their respective sectors.
With FHW, the expertise of Fiera Milano joins the knowledge of local partners in order to provide the companies with a unique opportunity to enter Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Turkey, continuously growing markets with a high potential. Together with their presence in these countries, the main strengths of the exhibition are the research activity on markets and sectors, a dedicated team and the business matching activity. The events take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Cape Town, South Africa, India, Bangalore, and finally in China in Guangzhou (Canton), from 12 to 14 September 2014.
What new features will take place at Host this year?
We are continuing to develop the strategy that proved so successful for the last edition. Internationalisation and attention to new formats will be the key success factors. The 2015 edition will be particularly important because it takes place during the semester of Expo 2015, the universal exhibition hosted in Milan from 1 May which includes a focus on food themes. We will certainly develop special synergies with Expo 2015 to offer our exhibitors and visitors an even more complete experience.
Has there been any strategic re-direction of Host in light of the recession/austerity measures in Italy?
The Italian food equipment sector is a strongly export-oriented industry. Therefore, it was only partially affected by the stagnation of Italy’s domestic demand and is recovering rather quickly thanks to positive export figures.
Our strategy was already highly focused on internationalisation, so we did not need to revise it specifically for the Italian context. Of course, we did put an additional effort in promoting the 2013 edition, which resulted in unprecedented results: we had 133,000 professional visitors (up seven per cent on 2011), 38.7 per cent of them were international (51,600 presences, up 21 per cent compared to 2011), and 1,700 exhibitors from 48 countries (namely 559 foreign companies, increasing by 16.5 per cent) 350 of these were new to Host, with an increase of 6.5 per cent. We hosted some 1,500 international select buyers and organised 38,400 business matches.
How important is the education programme for this event?
Historically, Host boasts an important component of business culture that contributes to its leadership in the market. This year in particular we introduced two authoritative awards in cooperation with POLI.design, a consortium led by Milan’s Polytechnic University and devoted to develop cutting-edge industrial design.
Host Smartlabel has awarded a special quality label to 35 products and services distinguished for their innovative and sustainable solutions, while design award HOSThinking shortlisted 18 projects that redefined the standards of HoReCa formats, out of which three were awarded during Host 2013.
At Host 2013 we held more than 400 events including workshops, seminars and show-cooking events. In particular, the Identità Golose spaces presented starred chefs including Andrea Mainardi, Christian and Manuele Costardi, Davide Scabin, Fabrizio Ferrari, while the Extraordinariamente Host calendar included other starred guests like Davide Oldani, Enrico Cerea, Ernst Knam, Luisa Valazza. Bar events featured the World Barista Champions from the WBC All-Stars contest Pete Licata, Michael Phillips and James Hoffman, while among the maître patissiers we had Iginio Massari.
Do you feel Host is facing increasing competition from smaller, niche events?
Host’s concept is unique because it combines the specialisation of vertical events with a broad overview on the entire HoReCa industry. The ‘contamination’ between different but complementary value chains is a value added element unique to Host, that we feel no niche event can provide. We don’t see these events as ‘competition’: we operate on different layers.
Moreover, Host has a worldwide international projection, while niche events work mostly on a more local plan. We see that many exhibitors of ours integrate their participation at Host with a presence in a niche event for some specific market reason, but they would never replace Host with only niche events.
This was first published in issue 2/4 of EW. Any comments? Email Annie Byrne
