Fira de Barcelona wins the 2016 UFI Education Award

UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, has named Fira de Barcelona as winner of its prestigious UFI Education Award.

Three finalists’ projects were carefully examined by the UFI Education Committee during their meeting on 7 June in Cologne. The Committee was delighted to see three strong finalists, each with excellent approaches: Reed Exhibition (UK), Fira de Barcelona (Spain) and ITE Group Plc. (UK). As a result, the Committee selected Fira de Barcelona as the winner of the 2016 UFI Education Award.

Fit for the future

Fira de Barcelona was selected for the creativity of its programme and for its interesting training method, which allowed the recruitment and training of two young exhibition professionals for their role in specific international markets.

“The project presented by Fira perfectly fits our award guidelines and clearly aims at supporting talents and future leaders in their career development. The exhibition industry will be inspired by the winners’ innovative approaches and creative solution”, says Enrica Baccini, UFI Education Committee Chair. This year’s Education Award, entitled ’Fit for the future’, was designed to honour companies whose activities have measurable outcomes, and who show an outstanding recruitment and selection of skills as part of a strategic approach.

After the announcement, Olga Figuerola Gimenez-Coral, People & Organization Director at Fira de Barcelona, said: “We are very pleased and honoured to receive the 2016 UFI Education Award. The project we presented, the International Talent Development Program, has contributed a great deal to consolidate Fira’s international business strategy. It is a project defined and executed with care and passion by Fira’s team. We thank the jury and are very happy to share this experience with the rest of the UFI community. I also encourage the participation of all members in UFI’s activities as a great learning and development opportunity”. The UFI Award winners will share their projects at the 83rd UFI Congress in Shanghai during the Special Interest Group (SIG) for Best Practices.

Other UFI Awards for outstanding initiatives 

The UFI Education Award is one of UFI’s many annual competitions that recognise and reward people in the exhibition industry for successfully implementing creative and results-oriented initiatives. UFI’s awards celebrate excellence in areas ranging from marketing and technology to trade fair poster design and sustainable development. More information on these UFI competitions is available at http://www.ufi.org/.