Vijfhuizen – The 4rd edition of IFTF and the first time held IHTF Expo closed its doors last Friday after a very successful week. Exhibitors and visitors were very satisfied with what they saw. More than 300 exhibitors experienced an excellence attendance. The number of trade visitors almost reached the expected number of 25.000; 23.241 visitors passed the entrance doors during the 3-day show from 114 different countries.
The fairs were opened by the mayor of Aalsmeer, mrs. J. Vonk -Vedder, who also announced during the opening ceremony the 4 nominated companies for the yearly awarded prestigious 2014 “Dutch Horticulture Entrepeneurs Price. The company that will be elected as the 2014 winner, will be announced on January 8 in the “Keukenhof” in Holland.
Together with the FloraHolland trade fair the total number of exhibiting companies almost touched the 1000 this year, making it the largest floriculture event in the world. “The next challenge will be to grow the fairs towards the largest horticulture trade event in the world”, the director of IFTF & IHTF Dick van Raamsdonk said. “All ingredients for a World Horticulture Expo are there to make that happen and Holland is the ideal country for such an event. For next year 8.000 m2’s space will be added to the current 24.000 exhibition space, making it 32.000 m2’s.
The IHTF as a name will disappear as of next year and continue under IFTF Expo, in other words the abbreviation IFTF will become the official name for both fairs. IFTF will therefore imply ‘The International Trade Fair for the Floriculture and Horticulture Industries’. “Four years ago, when we started with the first edition, we launched the IFTF as a temporarily name for the floriculture expo, but it became known so quick, that it would be a mistake to come up now with another new name. That is why we have decided to brand it as IFTF from now on”, van Raamsdonk concluded.
IFTF will be held again next year from November 5 to 7 in Expo Haarlemmermeer in Vijfhuizen, Holland. Updated information can be found on www.iftf.nl.
Source: HPP Exhibitions
