27 June 2013
A meeting between Georgiy Poltavchenko, St. Petersburg’s governor, and Chen Xianjin, president of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI), took place on 24 June in the Smolny Palace – the governor’s official residence. The president of RESTEC Group of Companies Serguei Trofimov, vice-president of "ExpoForum" JSC Sergei Alexeyev, deputy governor of St. Petersburg Oleg Markov, chairman of the Committee on External Relations of St. Petersburg Alexander Prokhorenko, chairman of the Committee on Tourism Development of St. Petersburg Alexander Shapkin and operations director of Global Association of the Exhibition Industry UFI Sonia Thomas were present at the event.
Participants discussed the issues of the congress tourism development in St. Petersburg and cooperation between the North capital and UFI. In particular, Serguei Trofimov presented statistics of the the exhibition and congress market of Russia and St. Petersburg and the program of creation of exhibition cluster in St. Petersburg, and shared his vision on the Europe+Asia Event Forum EFEA as an effective communication platform for future exhibition cluster.
Chen Xianjin noted that the plans of the development of congress tourism in St. Petersburg are very promising and impressive. He also added that the Northern capital of Russia is one of the most important and challenging areas for cooperation for UFI.
