HORTIFAIR HOLLAND 2009

Joseph Blair, Director of Horticulture Network Ireland will be attending the HORTIFAIR 2009 show. If you are an Irish company looking for new export opportunity's, product sourcing or wish to carry out market research then this show is for you. If you cannot make the show but would like HNI to source information on your behalf then please contact: jblair@irishexporters.org or call him on 00 353 87 9212044

Tuesday 13 to Friday 16 October inclusive in the Amsterdam RAI:
HORTI FAIR IS MEETING PLACE FOR INTERNATIONAL HORTICULTURE FOR FOUR WHOLE DAYS

Amsterdam, 12 October 2009 – For four whole days, from Tuesday 13 to Friday 16 October inclusive, the Horti Fair in Amsterdam in the Netherlands will again be the meeting place for horticulture this year. With a stronger exhibition concept, extra service for participants and visitors, and a lot of attention for innovations and the transfer of knowledge, the Horti Fair 2009 is the most complete of international horticultural trade shows, in these times as well. 'For a sustainable future' is the theme of the Horti Fair, which is all about doing business, the power of personal contacts and optimum use of the worldwide four-day horticulture platform.

This will be the tenth edition of the Horti Fair in its present format, although its predecessors were organized in the Dutch horticultural centres of the Westland and Aalsmeer for the first time no less than fifty years ago. "Given the present economic situation, we are not making too much of this anniversary. We are focusing on the exhibition’s primary role as a supporting instrument for the achievement of business goals. By combining this with trade fair projects such as the encouragement of quality, innovation and the transfer of knowledge, and with ‘For a sustainable future’ as the exhibition theme, we are contributing collectively to raising the international profile of horticulture. This is absolutely the right time to send out a powerful signal," says Marius Varekamp, the chairman of the Horti Fair.

For, by and from horticulture
Seventeen horticultural organizations are represented on the Advisory Board of the Horti Fair. "The Horti Fair is for, by and from horticulture. Precisely in this time of economic downturn, we have joined our grass roots in a comprehensive consideration of the role that the Horti Fair fulfils in international horticulture. And judging by the interest, participants agree with the organizers that the Horti Fair must be the annual meeting place for horticulture," explains Wim van der Loo, the executive director of the Horti Fair. The trade show has approximately 725 exhibitors from almost fifty countries this year and they will be occupying the whole of exhibition halls 1 to 7 inclusive of the Amsterdam RAI in the Netherlands.
The new segmentation of the Horti Fair 2009, in which horticultural technology and supplies have been merged into Horti Tech and the horticultural production and trade/services into Horti Grow & Trade, increases the transparency for visitors. New and extensive collective pavilions, such as the AVAG Market and the Breeders' Market offer exhibitors more low threshold options and complete what the exhibition has to offer. "The Horti Fair provides the fullest picture of present and future horticulture and the related activities," concludes Van der Loo on the basis of the registrations for the annually best attended global horticultural event.

More service for visitors
The new website at www.hortifair.nl gives a greater volume of up-to-date information (in the weekly newsletters for both exhibitors and visitors for example) and search and find functions all the way to product level have been added, as well as a daily agenda of all the activities at the exhibition. The Horti Fair Daily News – a bilingual trade show newspaper with the latest news, all activities at the fair and a complete floor plan - awaits visitors at the entrances every day as well as in the shuttles. The official exhibition floorplans, which are also available in a convenient, user-friendly format with the exhibition catalogue, enable visitors to map out their own new products and theme trails. Comfortable shuttles travel quickly, safely and more frequently from horticultural areas to the Horti Fair (see www.hortifair.com/shuttles) and, although there is no preferred parking, there are more intensive shuttle services from the satellite car parks of the Amsterdam RAI. The exhibition complex is also easily reached by train incidentally, since its own NS railway station is only a two-minute walk away, and is scarcely 20 minutes away from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol for international travellers.

Innovation programme and transfer of knowledge
The Horti Fair Innovation Award is the most important component of the Horti Fair’s innovation programme. This prestigious accolade, in partnership with Reed Business, is presented to the most promising new products in the two exhibition categories on the first day of the horticultural trade show in Amsterdam. The international jury of experts nominated eighteen prospective winners of the Horti Fair Innovation Award at the beginning of September. It should be noted that all new products can be recognized by the fair logo and are listed at www.hortifair.nl. New exhibition projects like the Career Plaza and extension and enlargement of the special interest pavilions like the House of Technology, House of Software and Good & Green Pavilion reinforce the transfer of knowledge in the Horti Fair concept. There is tailored information in this respect in the House of Quality, which accommodates the greatest judging event in the world for flowers and plants. The result is that the museum-like nature of this part of the event acquires the extra dynamics of personal communication supported by digital reference works...
Breakfast Briefings, twenty of them in total ahead of the opening times on the four days of the exhibition period, offer visitors the opportunity for optimum preparation of specific subjects and developments in and around horticulture.

Exhibition theme 'For a sustainable future'
In choosing ‘For a sustainable future’ as the theme for the Horti Fair 2009, the organizers are extending the sustainability process initiated previously. Approximately seventy exhibitors, who are listed in the special theme catalogue, are taking up this theme in the fitting out of their stands, special trade fair offers and/or innovations. In addition, the theme is the keynote for the content of special pavilions like the House of Technology, Good & Green Pavilion and the House of Software, and for the Breakfast Briefings as well. The exhibition theme underlines the positioning of international horticulture as a sustainable branch of industry, as also became clear at the Horti Fair/Flynth symposium on 24 September. "One of the conclusions of the well-attended symposium was that horticulture has to speak out more about its achievements in sustainability. This can be of help in representing the interests of horticulture worldwide, certainly at this present time. And so the Horti Fair is a valuable instrument, both for individual company interests and sector-wide collectivity," assert Varekamp the chairman and Van der Loo the executive director.