İZFAŞ will organize Olivtech and Ekoloji Fairs as a hybrid model on 20-22 May this year and thus bring together sector professionals and exhibitors in both physical and virtual environments.
İzmir Fair Services Cultural and Art Affairs Trade Inc. (İZFAŞ) has been the pioneer of digital transformation for fairs that could not be realized due to the pandemic urned into a platform for users within one-click reach. Fuar İzmir, as being Turkey’s largest and most modern fairground, is moved to screens by 3D modelling and turned into a platform for the users within one-click reach. Olivtech and Ekoloji Virtual Fair, which took place on the “Digital İzmir Fair” platform on 10-12 December 2020, provided the exhibitors and visitors with a realistic fair experience for three days. Aiming to bring together sector professionals in 2021, İZFAŞ will organize Olivtech and Ekoloji Fairs on 20-22 May as a hybrid model. The leading names of the sector will have the chance to make new business connections with exhibitors and visitors in both physical and digital environments.
Visitors from 29 countries
A total of 39 companies from Turkey and abroad exhibited in the fairs held on 10-12 December 2020. A total of one thousand 33 sector professionals, 70 of which were foreigners, visited the fairs for three days. Professionals from the United States of America, Germany, Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Ethiopia, Morocco, Palestine, France, India, Netherlands, England, Spain, Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Lebanon, Macedonia, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Ukraine, Jordan, Greece and Zimbabwe met with the exhibitors.
6 thousand 965 views in three days
The most interesting meetings of the fairs where the sector came together were webinars. While “Olivtech Webinars” is realized with the support of the National Olive and Olive Oil Council; “Ekoloji Meetings Web Seminars” were organized with the support of The Association of Ecological Agriculture Organization (ETO). Webinars were followed with interest for three days. In the sessions with the participation of professionals from the sector; agriculture, organic farming, producer markets, olives, olive cultivation, domestic and foreign markets and their implications in Turkey and worldwide were discussed. The seminars, which consisted of a total of 9 sessions and took place simultaneously with the virtual fairs, reached 6.965 views in three days.
Chairwoman of İzmir Köy-Koop Union, parent organization of 107 Agricultural Development Cooperatives, Neptün Soyer:
“We give such importance to digitalization of marketing agricultural products. We trade our relevant outputs and products at Hıdırlık Agricultural Development Cooperative www.seferipazar.com and www.koykoopizmir.com founded in Seferihisar, a district of İzmir which was awarded the 1st prize by Informatics Association and TÜSİAD in 2013.” Soyer stated; “I would like to thank İZFAŞ, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality and contributing institutions for bringing together the sector to meet at Olivtech and Ekoloji İzmir Virtual fairs brought us together after a long time. Since it is not clear exactly when we will meet physically in the coming period, we will continue to carry out some of our activities on the virtual platform. From this point of view, such a virtual environment that enables the sector to meet is very precious for us. As the Village-Cooperative, we were very happy when we received an offer to exhibit in the fair. In this platform, the idea of bringing our products, especially olive oil, to the world as a Village – Cooperative was very valuable for us. Virtual fairs will “be effective in making our olive oil to take more place in the international platform and will contribute to its export”. We were dreaming about these, I thank all the authorities who made it happen.”
Agriculture Consultant of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality and Second President of Doğan Bey Coop. Şevket Meriç:
“The physical fairs we hold every year were interrupted by the pandemic. The digitized segment is the new target audience of local producers. This is because the buyers are constantly moving in the digitalizing world. Producers and cooperatives are coming to the world market for the first time thanks to virtual fairs. With the removal of borders, cities will start to come into prominence and İzmir raises the bar by increasing its marketing share in this area. In this period, when the borders between countries have disappeared thanks to technological developments, I think that we can reach large masses thanks to the fairs organized virtually. Local producers in our region had the opportunity to market their products digitally. In addition, I think virtual fairs are very important for consumers who cannot leave their homes due to the pandemic. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the preparation of the Digital İzmir platform.”
Product Network Manager of Yavaş Dükkan (Slow Store), Asil Dugan:
“I think virtual fairs are very important in terms of conveying the work we have done in this process to our stakeholders and communicating with more people. İZFAŞ quickly integrated into this process with the Digital İzmir Fair platform it developed for fairs that could not happen due to the pandemic. It has become easier for companies and organizations like us to step into digital. The platform enabled us to interact with other companies by bringing us together. In our age where digitalization is advancing rapidly, we must invest more in digital all together and ensure that it is sustainable.”
Marketing Manager of Şentaş Inc., Pol Filinesi:
“Virtual fairs have restored our communication that had been interrupted with our customers for a long time. The software of the digital platform was very efficient. Thus, we organized a nice fair through the Digital İzmir Fair platform. Thank you.”
Chairman of Alhatoğlu, Alper Alhat:
“We had the chance to meet with many companies from all over the world with the Digital İzmir Fair Platform software. Frankly, I was sorry for the companies that did not exhibit. The fact that the digital platform is accessible and easy has provided great advantages for both us and our customers. The world is becoming digital, we need to adapt to the environment we live in. It makes us proud that companies exhibited in the fair have established a system integrated with the world. We are good at this and I believe we will do even better.”
Board Member of the Association of Ecological Agriculture Organization (ETO), Alev Kır:
“I think the Virtual Fair provides much more benefit than we expected. In the virtual environment, we had the chance to deal with many issues in a short time by acting quickly. As the digital platform is easy to access and use, it did not tire us and we used it effectively.”
Common mind in both the digital and physical world
İZFAŞ General Manager Canan Karaosmanoğlu Alıcı said the following: “During the pandemic process, we have seen that it is never possible for the international trade to end. This is because countries, cities and companies are connected by the unbreakable ties of the global chain. So we have made our investment in digital conversion as İZFAŞ, which has the largest fairground in Turkey, and as İzmir being Turkey’s city of fairs. İZFAŞ also has been the pioneer of Turkey in the fair organization in the digital environment. Fair organization requires a city coalition. İZFAŞ is the right address for this; because as we see it, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, İzmir Chamber of Commerce, Aegean Exporters’ Associations, İzmir Commodity Exchange, Aegean Region Chamber of Industry and The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange of Turkey are among the company partners. We’ve developed Turkey’s first local fair software in İzmir working together with these institutions. We digitalized our Fuar İzmir ground, which is Turkey’s largest fairground, by 3D modelling. Besides that, we do not intend to put our physical fairs into background. An international fair becomes a huge sector that nurtures and serves the promotion and economic vitality of the city. Therefore, we will also never abandon physical fairs for our city İzmir. As the process returns to normal and with the developed vaccines, we will continue our fairs that bring the world together. I thank the companies and institutions which exhibited in Olivtech and Ekoloji Virtual Fairs, visitors, all the stakeholders that contributed our events and listeners for having the first experience with us. We wish to come together with the sector at the earliest in our fairs at Fuar İzmir and continue to strengthen the sector with our fairs.”
