Presentation

Horexpo 2008
Horexpo toke place in Lisbon from 30th March  to 2nd April, 2008, and filled the entire exhibition area at the FIL – Feira Internacional de Lisboa. A key business platform for industry professionals, Horexpo has undergone continuous growth since its first edition, both in terms of exhibitor and visitor numbers and in terms of the number of participating countries.

Horexpo has a sector-specific structure in order to optimise the presentation of the products and services on offer, and for that reason, the exhibition is divided into 8 sectors.

The interest and esteem generated among the professionals and companies working in the Food and Hospitality Channel justify the event’s importance with respect to other trade fairs held in Portugal. The show, have had the presence and support of the industry’s main economic operators, and also was supported this year by key assocations, who in 2008 hae been involved in the creation and development of the parallel events that toke place and which, directly or indirectly, involved the entire food and hospitality industry.

A Luxury Setting
Within the trends of the tourist industry world-wide, Portugal and its adjoining business infrastructure occupy an excellent position.
It is predicted that the international demand for travel and leisure will increase by 4.5% a year until 2012 and that the tourists of the next decade will be looking for «experiences» to suit individual tastes and not standard products.

Thanks to some services of the Horeca channel, which are making advances in this direction, and to the inherent attractions of Portugal itself, the hotel, restaurant and catering trades generate an overall turnover in the order of 15,000 million euros a year.

Horexpo shows the growing importance of the brand, the personalisation of the product and the application and development of new Information Technologies, driving a market which each year deals with more than 28 million visitors.
Its hotel capacity of almost 217,000 beds, a number of restaurant and similar establishments approaching 100,000 and the fact of being the only member of the EU where eating outside the home accounts for over 50% of spending on food, show the dynamism with which the industry is confronting the monumental changes in the consumer habits of the Portuguese and their visitors.