Rendezvous for professionals

At 37, Hoventa is the second oldest among events organised for the HoReCa sector. Although development of the market has slowed down in recent years, the event has been held in Hall “A” since 2003. This year, Hoventa occupied a total of 7,500 square meters of exhibition space. There were 200 exhibitors, while the number of visitors was 15,000. – It is strange that many exhibitors failed to take notice of the opportunity offered by Hoventa podium to present their innovations – says Mrs. Etele, managing director of the company organising the event. „Hoventa színfolt” was an exhibition area for exhibitors which are too small to operate a stand of their own. – The biggest challenge for HOVENTA Kft, is to remain useful and interesting for exhibitors year after year – adds Mrs. Etele. Exhibitors had mixed feelings regarding the 2008 exhibition. Old clients know that attending this event is a long term investment and do not expect immediate returns to cover costs. – We are selling premium category products and Hoventa is an excellent opportunity to present and represent quality – says Bence Víg, managing director of Progast – It is also a good opportunity to see how well our competitors are doing. Regarding services provided for the catering sector, we are not lagging very far behind Western Europe. New trends appear in Hungary almost immediately following their debut in the west. – I think that most shortcomings seen at the event were due to causes beyond the competence of the organisers – he adds. However, a system of preliminary registration would have been useful. During the last three years, the size of the METRO stand has expanded to four times its original size (from 200 to 800 square meters). – It is a serious challenge for us to maintain the size and quality of the assortment presented at Hoventa – says Ákos Haász from Metro. – We were offering 2-3,000 articles each day at Hoventa and we believe that our communication was successful as our on the spot sales exceeded our expectations by 50 percent. – At occasions like this, the profession is represented in such concentration that it is practical for us to relocate our showroom to the exhibition – says Gábor Dános, managing director of Aloys Dallmayr Kft. Unfortunately, the number of visitors this year was less than they had expected. A number of other exhibitors have also complained about a drop in the number of visitors. Possibly, numbers could have been better had there been a day for registered visitors only, or if the event had been held at the weekend. However, Dallmayr is not disappointed, although they think that communication between organiser and exhibitors could have been better. –This year, we were glad to see that attending events like this is important for an increasing part of the trade – says Csongor Varga, managing director of Hagleitner Hygenie Hungary. – This exhibition was a really successful one for us – he adds. As a result of attending the exhibition, Hagleitner will be able to participate in several major projects in the future.