Carrara Sees 2006 Increase

The event on May 31-June 3 drew 20,380 attendees — 3,986 from outside Italy – marked an 11-percent rise from last year’s event. The 440 exhibitors – a six-percent jump from 2005 – offered new stone and technology in the event’s 23,000 m² (up 23 percent from last year).“A satisfactory result,” says Giancarlo Tonini, president of CarraraFiere, the event’s producer, “especially because it seems to confirm, at least partly, those positive signs that have come up over the last few months and that have given confidence back to the companies, especially the Italian companies.”Half of the non-Italian attendees came from other European Union (EU) countries, while 12 percent hailed from non-EU Europe. Africa provided 10 percent, while nine percent came from the Middle East; North America accounted for eight percent, Latin America offered five percent, and six percent arrived from the Far East and Oceania.Significant increases in attendance came from the United States, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium and Denmark, as well as from new producers and partners such as Iran, the Czech Republic, Lebanon and Qatar. The numbers of Greek and Turkish operators were stable; French, Spanish and Indian attendance, which had seen an upsurge in 2005, decreased this year. More than half – 54 percent – of Italian attendees hailed from the central part of the country, 32 percent from the north and 14 percent from the south and the islands.
CarraraMarmotec marketed the event to more than 100,000 companies and professionals worldwide through promotional emails and faxes, invitation cards and 100,000 badges with barcodes for automated entrance.Some categories were specifically targeted by email, including 10,000 architects and 15,000 building contractors and operators.
“The standards of the meetings and the attendance of people who were extremely interested in the initiatives,” says Paris Mazzanti, managing director of CarraraFiere, “prove that our fair, as well as being a promotional opportunity for marble and technology, is also a great cultural tool, a sort of bridge between the manufacturing world and the world of people who design and use natural stone. We will work at that, to create new opportunities and stimuli, especially for the architects, who seemed to be extremely interested in the fair and in the displayed materials.” CarraraMarmotec 2007 will take place on May 30-June 2. For more information, go to http://www.carraramarmotec.com.