Interview with Mr Baris Can Erol

As being in the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Turkey is not only a local player for clothing and textile industry, also the main domain of supply for Russia and Caucasian Countries, Middle East and Northern Africa region and the Turkic Republics. Regarding the forces behind Turkish textile indusrty, Turkey is the seventh largest cotton producer in the world, second largest textile supplier of Europe and cotton is still the most important raw material needed in textiles. Turkish producers employ a highly experienced and skilled workforce, industry has a superior and high technical/technological infrastructure. On the other hand Europe is the most active market for textiles and Turkey is advantageously close to this market. Also Turkish textile industry belongs to the customs union with the EU.

We are the biggest in both hall rental and fair organization businesses in Turkey. Our dominance in these areas also supported the growth of our stand construction, material rental, catering and travel agency businesses.

Istanbul Trade Fairs (ITF) which was formed as a joint venture between ITE and CNR is Turkey’s biggest fair organization company. ITF has concentrated on organizing international industrial fairs. The biggest of our shows are Evteks, Tatef, Autoshow Istanbul, Imob, Gida and Otomotiv which Evteks and Tatef are the 2nd and 3rd biggest in the world.

The fair organization business is shifting from Europe to the East and our objective in the mid-run is to reposition Turkey as the main-hub for trade fairs in the EMEA and the Caucasian area.

We partner with industrial associations to get them to support our shows. Associations are the primary driving forces in certain industries where our fairs are competing with top international fairs, such as Evteks and Tatef.

At the end of the day we are a service company. Everything very much depends on planning and implementation. Primarily, we need to bring together the right visitors with the right exhibitors. Secondly, we must provide seamless services to our exhibitors and visitors before, during and after the show. All these stages require both high and low level planning and the involvement of all levels of management in these stages are very much important and dependent on the success of the show. Our management team is well aware of this and we put all our efforts to make our fairs more successful than the previous one.

On the contrary, online promotions are dependent on trade fairs. People take notes about what they see online but no one makes a decision to buy textiles and apparels without seeing and touching the samples. Trade fairs give buyers the chance to see and feel what they are about to buy.

Regardless of the number of events taking place, trade fairs will continue being the most important meeting point for exhibitors and visitors, so will Texgate.

Being the second biggest export item of Turkey textiles and allied sectors are of great importance to Istanbul Trade Fairs (ITF).

It is too important to recognize what expectations exhibitors and visitors have. If you have this information then you will not make a mistake. We did this for Texgate 2007 and you have already seen the successful results. We will keep focusing on the expectations of exhibitors and visitors to grow our success further.