Vicenza Fair needs to re-think strategy to aid Italian export sector
Fiera di Vicenza
TJF Group Co-Founder Paola De Luca and Vicenza Fair President Roberto Ditri
VICENZA, Italy, January 19, 2010 – The Vicenza gold jewellery fair needs to re-think its strategy in order to boost the Italian jewellery sector, which is losing exports amidst the global economic crisis.
According to the latest figures made available to the Vicenza Fair, Italian jewellery exports are estimated to be down around 20 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year.
A fall in demand for jewellery, surging and volatile gold prices, the fragmented nature of the Italian industry, and improving skills in competing low-labour-cost emerging economies, have eroded Italian jewellery export turnover.
The new president of the Vicenza Fair, Roberto Ditri, is fully aware of the challenges facing the Italian jewellery export sector, and has taken every opportunity to ask senior industry and government officials, and specialist journalists, for their views on what needs to be done.
Fiera di Vicenza 
At the international news conference at the VicenzaOro First trade fair on January 18, Ditri asked journalists for their opinions on how to drive the Vicenza fair format forward.
Ideas included staging a competition for talented young Italian, and international, designers; defining “Made in Italy” jewellery; pursuing more innovative marketing strategies; increased use of the internet and digital technology; and lobbying for cuts in import tariffs in key markets such as the United States and China.
Even the names of the three Vicenza fair editions — First, Charm and Choice — came under scrutiny.
The fair understands the challenge. Now is the time to move forward.
