CarraraMarmotec 2016: An Edition With New Contents And New Business Tools.

The 85% of buyers declare their satisfaction with the agenda of more than 3.000 scheduled B2B meetings with exhibitors. Satisfactory contacts and sales at the show for most exhibitors, especially in the sector of technology. Nearly 10.000 attendees over the 4 days of exhibition, of which 23% represented by foreign visitors from 55 countries.

There is an air of positivity at the end of the last day of CarraraMarmotec 2016. An edition that the organisers define as “zero” edition, even though the event has already 32 editions behind. The new exhibition format has  been appreciated and has allowed exhibitors to sign contracts and establish new business contacts.

“CarraraMarmotec sees the light  - once more - with a new format and a new  “outfit”. We have brought in Carrara 220 international buyers through an Incoming programme organised in part with the support of Italian Trade Agency (Agenzia ICE) and Regione Toscana. The selection of the buyers is the result of a  long and difficult process aimed to identify top professionals of the industry that precisely needed to buy either quality stone materials or technologies. For them, we prepared an  intensive programme of B2B meetings with exhibitors, as well as a dense training programme designed to make them understand the quality and peculiarities of Italian marble qualities and also the advanced skills and versatility of Italian technology” - declares  IMM/CarraraFiere President Fabio Felici, who continues: “This is the largest B2B event ever organised in Carrara with this methodology, developed with the highly professional assistance of Uplink Web Agency which -  in the two months before the event – has skillfully handled the profiling of all buyers and sellers involved. Both parties, through advanced Cloud systems and private online areas, have defined their preferences on the meetings, and with the help of an innovative matching system, the "perfect matching" between supply and demand has been created. During the days of the event, the meetings were very professionally monitored by the staff of Uplink,  which received immediate feedback on the quality of the meetings on the agenda”.

Over 3000 scheduled appointments have involved exhibitors and foreign buyers. From the real-time comments readable on the web application, and also from those expressed by the buyers in real-time interviews, the B2B workshop held in the framework of CarraraMarmotec 2016 proves it success in the effectiveness of the meetings that were carried out. Exhibitors have appreciated the fact of meeting buyers  face to face in “flash meetings” aimed to open trade relations to be developed – and not at their stands, as it always used to be –, whereas the buyers (companies and architects) declare having made interesting contacts which may turn very useful in their future projects. The 60% of sellers declare themselves satisfied of the B2B meetings, whereas the buyers satisfaction goes beyond 85%.

The satisfaction of the exhibitors is clear in the words expressed by some of them. Alessandro Figaia of  companyGuglielmo Vennai affirms: “You can really notice there has been a change gear and a deeper commitment on the side of the fair organisers. We can see a new light starting to shine, which of course must be fueled for the future. B2B meetings have been a positive experience for us and I am willing to support the fair organisation with suggestions and ideas for other future B2B events”. For Carlo Colombi (Marmi Carrara), CarraraMarmotec has proved  to be “an unexpectedly positive experience. B2B meetings have been very positive for our company and should certainly be further developed in the future. I personally think it is a shame that some big companies of the field did not attend the show”.  Positive words come also from  Alessandro Ricci, representative of the company New Polaris, who declares: "The B2B workshop has proved to be an excellent experience and allowed us to make many new business contacts”.  Also Paolo Majello, speaking for Errebi Marmi, supports this point of view : “The B2B workshop has been very useful, it should certainly be repeated  and further developed. I think CarraraMarmotec is a leading trade fair in this sector and I am happy I have attended it. It is a shame  to remark the absence of some big companies of the field”.

On the foreign front, we report the words of Thomas Rakkos, Sales Manager of Iktinos Hellas SA (Greece): “Really  nice experience: we are very pleased to have participated in this edition of CarraraMarmotec where we sold 90% of the exhibited material. We recorded a 50 % of new contacts, most of them Italians, Iranians, Arabs, Chinese and Americans".

Highlights include positive results also for BancoEx Venezuela, a public institution committed to export promotion of private, public and subsidiary  companies active in the stone industry of the South American country. Freddy Delgado, responsible for the promotion and internationalization of the sector, affirms:  “Carrara is for us the first stop of a promotional programme that will touch the fairs of Moscow, Verona and Madrid. CarraraMarmotec has allowed us to get in touch with a number of professionals from the UAE, Morocco , Egypt, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Jordan and China. We came in Carrara not only with the aim of selling Venezuelan granite, but also to discover  the manufacturing excellence of technologies with which we have established attractive business relationships to be strengthened and developed in the future. For us, IMM can  be the ideal partner with which developing new synergies between Venezuelan and Italian companies”.

The new format has given resonance to an important issue that the market itself requires (especially American and Arabic markets). Yesterday , 20^th May 2016, took place the successful first edition of the 1st International Sustainable Stone Conference, which ‒ for the first time in an exhibition context and at the presence of Italian and foreign speakers of great importance – dealt with all aspects related to sustainability issues in the stone sector.

Many were the topics discussed, among them also the importance of undertaking environmentally sustainable productive paths aimed at minimizing waste from the extraction and processing of stones, paths which are also necessary to access funding from the European Community programmes, which for  2014-2020 has allocated on this issue substantial resources, with particular reference to raw materials, including natural stones.

The plenary session stood out thanks to the contribution of David Castellucci, President of MIA (Marble Institute of America), who presented US standards for assessing the sustainability of companies working in the stone industry. These standards, with appropriate adjustments, could constitute a good practice applicable to our area. Peter Becker, title holders of the specialised portal Stone-ideas, showed what may be the mode of valorisation of waste from processing of natural stone through eco-design and a sustainable building approach.

The afternoon parallel sessions dealt in detail with the issue of sustainable architecture, eco-design, environmental sustainability and social-economic sustainability for the industry. In particular, Italcementi presented the most innovative materials for the construction sector, on the basis of the assessment of the life cycle of products for installation and coatings. Still on the issue of environment,  various case studies related to LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) in different stone districts have been presented.

As far as the Carrara stone district is concerned, a project study developed by the University of Turin for SAM Marmi Carrara was presented to face with the problem  of the so-called “ravaneti”, huge deposits of marble debris to be disposed of: from the studies that have been carried out, it seems that  the results can be applied as soon as possible.

Various projects were presented to obtain a  reduction of waste and to optimize the yield of natural stone deposits and reduce  the consumption of water during the processing steps.

The session has also given space to tuition fees, and therefore to research commissioned by the companies, from which one may draw useful information to repeat in Carrara what has been already done in other districts. The socio-economic session was focused on the study of industrial tourism and on the ability of a district to enhance tourism making it a catalyst for the benefit of the whole territory: some case histories  were analysed, such as that of the marble district of Orosei and the district of Verona.

The conference proceedings will be published shortly and will be disseminated to the CarraraMarmotec 2016 exhibitors.

The numbers of the event represent for the organisers an incentive to continue on the path that has been laid out: 189 exhibitors spread across 20.000 square metres, 52% of which represented by companies active in  quarrying and stone selling, whereas the 40% by the technology manufacturers and company of accessories and tools - and the 8% left by companies working in the various services available to the industry. Among exhibitors, 110 Tuscan businesses attended the trade fair,  but there were also excellent attendees from Lombardia, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lazio, Piemonte, Sicilia and Puglia, not surprisingly regions with a strong vocation for stone due to the presence of important stone materials and of leading technology manufacturers.

220 visiting delegates reached Carrara from the areas of greatest interest for the sector. The countries from which delegates  arrived in search of stone materials are: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Scandinavia, Quasar, Russia and the US, while operators interested in the technologies come from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Estonia , Ethiopia, Germany, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Palestine, Poland, UK, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and Sweden. Also 21 architects belonging to some of the most important international architectural studios, attended CarraraMarmotec 2016 thanks to the Incoming project of the Chamber of Commerce of Massa-Carrara, in cooperation with magazine Platform and CarraraFiere. Over 3000 bilateral meetings between exhibitors and foreign buyers, and more than 50 sessions and training workshops  dedicated to foreign delegates but also to Italian architects, geologists and engineers.

"I want to thank the exhibitors, all the institutions and the organisations that have supported us. The road ahead is uphill, but after these days I feel confident of being able to face it with a serene attitude, satisfied of  the hard work we have done and happy about the  re-created synergy and union that can be finally sensed in the area” – concludes  IMM / CarraraFiere General Director,  Luca Figari.

Uff. Comunicazione, Promozione e Marketing CarraraFiere -