Seatec and Compotec Marine 2022: a good restart

Seatec - Compotec Marine 2022, the Marina di Carrara event dedicated to technology, components, design and subcontracting for pleasure boating and composite materials used in the marine industry, closed yesterday - with results exceeding expectations and excellent growth prospects.

General satisfaction has been expressed both by the exhibitors and the approximately one thousand professionals visiting during the two days of the exhibition.

Many met the companies over the 420 B2B meetings scheduled thanks to the advanced match-making system that UpLink Web Agency developed and managed in Viareggio for the B2C held at Yare between shipyard captains and technicians as part of the partnership between the two Tuscany events.

IMM CarraraFiere and Navigo have joined forces looking to the future: this 2022 edition  marks the first step of a great common project created to develop the Tuscany nautical sector, which is strongly supported by the Region and by all institutional and associative industry organizations.

In fact, Viareggio and Carrara are the pillars of a regional high value international leadership in the panorama of luxury shipbuilding: the common will is to work together to establish a real consortium of the quality supply chain, representing not only the Apuania-Versilia cluster, but also the whole Italian marine industry.

Ms. Sandra Bianchi, new sole director of IMM CarraraFiere and Pietro Angelini, director of Navigo, confirm the will for an united path and a long-term vision, all the more necessary to face the very complex phase that the whole world is going through, from the pandemic to the recent geopolitical crisis in progress.

Sandra Bianchi: "After the cancellation of the 2021 edition due to the pandemic and the difficult contingency faced by the company, we are starting again from Seatec - Compotec Marine. It was not easy, I thank the Tuscany Region, the Municipality of Carrara and the many associations that have supported us. A special thank goes to the Exhibitors who believed in us and whose participation, despite the short time available to organize their presence at the show, testifies the event benefits for the local and national contexts. The 2022 edition was born under the sign of the synergy with Navigo, a partnership going in the direction I hoped, of a real collaboration between all the players of the sector, in my opinion the only viable choice to re-launch not only the trade fair but the entire sector, with a good economic and image impact on the territory. The positive feedback from our Exhibitors, who spoke of results exceeding expectations thanks to the professional visit and the quality of the B2B meetings, confirm that by joining forces and experiences and collaborating instead of competing, we will be able to grow and improve despite the complexity of the historical period we are experiencing. We need to think about what the exhibition will be in the future and how to overpass the traditional format with a broader vision. We are investing in this, because exhibitions must be at the service of companies "

NAVIGO director Pietro Angelini affirms: «We are observing that the marine industry is changing: charters are increasingly in demand and shipowners are younger and more attentive to news, asking increasingly for sustainable and technological products. This implies the need for relations with ports, with the Mediterranean, with the territories. There is a need for synergy and with CarraraFiere, we put together the desire to connect and develop a collaboration now and the next years to create an integrated event in an integrated district that takes a large portion of the coast going from Livorno to La Spezia. We must look to technology and innovation by providing companies with technological tools to encourage dialogue, training and meeting. We have already succeeded in this edition and we will do it always more. "

On show, the traditional sectors of electronic instrumentation, naval mechanics, raw materials, deck equipment, Press, as well as Start-ups dealing with innovative services such as 3D Printing, Eco-Sustainable Materials and Recyclable Composites.

The exhibitors present expressed their satisfaction for the quality of the visitors registered during the two days of the exhibition against a reasonable investment which allowed young and small companies active in the research of new products and solutions, to be known by buyers of the major Italian shipyards. The "Shipyard Lounge", where the technical and marketing managers meet exhibitors and operators in the supply chain and the technicians of the parent companies of their main suppliers, has been very appreciated by all.

Seatec - Compotec Marine is increasingly characterized as the occasion to meet and build relationships between exhibitors and the top Italian shipyards, as well as B2B events between exhibitors and buyers from the delegation of international shipyards sponsored by ICE / ITA Italian Trade Agency which this edition as well, in the context of the fruitful and pluriannual collaboration with IMM CarraraFiere, coordinated a delegation of highly qualified foreign operators from Israel, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, USA and Brazil.

The 2022 edition of Seatec -Compotec Marine, for the first time, proposed an innovative formula to participate through the Virtual Fair, allowing participants to develop new contacts with technicians and sales staff even remotely, and expanding opportunities for business through the online B2B with delegates from Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Brazil and Argentina.

The 156 virtual B2B meetings scheduled in video call involved international buyers interested in Seatec -  Compotec Marine who, for different reasons - from the limitations imposed by Covid-19 to the problems related to the war in Ukraine, were unable to attend the Exhibition.

As usual, the conference part was well represented: on stage the most topical issues of the industry, from Bolkenstein to the recycling and reuse of composite materials, from environmental sustainability to nautical design, from startups to the MYDA and Qualitec awards dedicated to boat designers and exhibitors' products and for the first time the topic of boats and disability.