Tens of Thousands Converge in Bologna for Cersaie’s Annual Ceramic Tile Expo
Architects, designers, installers, and more made their way to Bologna, Italy for the 2024 edition of Cersaie. Image courtesy of Cersaie.
In the current challenging market environment fueled by the ongoing international crises, Cersaie once again fulfilled the expectations of the companies that chose to invest in the show. The International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings reaffirmed its role as a unique global platform where businesses can showcase their latest product innovations in visually and emotionally impactful booths. The 41st edition of the show, held in the Bologna exhibition center from 23 to 27 September, spanned 15 fully occupied halls with a total floor space of 145,000 square meters. It hosted a total of 606 companies, including 332 from the ceramic tile sector, 91 from bathroom furnishings and 183 from the installation, raw materials, new surfaces and services sectors. The exhibition further highlighted its international scope with 230 non-Italian exhibitors (38% of the total) from 25 countries.
According to Cersaie organizers, the five-day event attracted 95,321 visitors, 4% fewer than at last year’s show. This slight decline was driven by a relatively stable turnout of international attendees (47,095 compared to 47,634 in 2023, a drop of just 1%) and a 6.7% decrease in Italian visitors (48,226 compared to 51,685).
“Despite the highly challenging international context, Cersaie’s exceptional capacity to attract visitors enabled exhibiting companies to really make the most of their investments,” said Augusto Ciarrocchi, Chairman of Confindustria Ceramica. “The exhibitors were particularly impressed by the quality of the visitors present at the show, including distributors, architects, and real estate operators. The Italian ceramic industry continues to lead world markets thanks to the unparalleled value of its design and key characteristics such as sustainability and respect for workers’ right.”
Further, according to Ciarrocchi, “We face growing challenges, including aggressive dumping practices by a number of countries and a loss of competitiveness caused by ideologically-driven application of regulations such as the ETS, which while consistent with shared EU environmental goals place an excessive burden on our companies. During the exhibition, we had the opportunity to raise these issues with the many representatives of the European, national, and regional institutions who were in attendance. In such a difficult context, it’s particularly frustrating that trade visitors who chose to attend Cersaie this year were inconvenienced by the taxi and airport workers’ strikes in Bologna on the vitally important days of Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 September. The damage and disruption caused to our visitors posed a serious risk to a competitive exhibition like ours and by extension to the local region as a whole. I sincerely hope that a sense of collective responsibility will prevail and such episodes will not be repeated in the future.”
“We are delighted with the success of this year’s Cersaie, which is one of the main highlights of our trade fair calendar,” said Antonio Bruzzone, CEO of BolognaFiere. “The large numbers of Italian and international exhibitors and buyers who took part despite the challenging economic situation once again confirms that this show, expertly organized by Confindustria Ceramica, is an essential event for the market. The only real disappointment was the strikes and the taxi service. Calling a strike on the opening day of such an important event demonstrates a lack of sensitivity towards those who bring wealth to the city. Even more frustrating was discovering that even on non-strike days there was a noticeable lack of taxis in circulation, as though the strike were still ongoing.”
Emilio Mussini, head of Promotional Activities at Confindustria Ceramica, summed up the extensive program of events at this edition of Cersaie, highlighting in particular “the 1,200 participants at the Keynote Lecture by Riken Yamamoto, the 13th Pritzker Prize laureate to speak at Cersaie; the hundreds of architects who attended the other events in the “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” program; and the enormous interest and strong attendance at Tiling Town. More than 240 operators from Europe, North America, the Gulf area and Africa attended as part of the Cersaie Business delegation, while large numbers of journalists from all over the world were present thanks to the invaluable collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Trade Agency ITA.”
Next year’s Cersaie will be held in Bologna from 22 to 26 September 2025. For more information, visit Cersaie’s website.