Page 48 - December 2022/January 2023 #177

MAPIC INSIGHT

People, Planet

& Profit

MAPIC is back in full for the first time since 2019 and MAPIC Markets Director Francesco Pupillo says that
visitors will experience a host of changes, reflecting a transformed retail and leisure sector and new priorities.

t was amazing to be back with a physical event last year but of and the companies that are driving change through technology but
course we were in the middle of the Omicron outbreak in also the environment, with sustainability, social and local initiatives.
INovember 2021, so it was not possible for it to be a normal That means we have the Innovation Forum, the premium networking
MAPIC. This time round we will welcome over 6,000 attendees and a sessions and the Retail Village, which will introduce visitors to many
host of new players from leisure, food and beverage and retail. These new retail names.
sectors had been going through a deep transformation even before the What participants won’t see is lots of models of new centres, because
pandemic and this year’s MAPIC is mirroring that transformation and we there is very little new development across Europe. Instead, developers
hope, helping guide the industry. and landlords are concentrating on how they refresh and renew their assets
Change has been accelerated, we are arriving at a new paradigm for to offer a wide mix of services that provide commercial and community
the future and we are also facing new challenges because of the war benefits in their location. That’s why MAPIC will be more diverse than
in Ukraine and the rising implications of increasing inflation and the ever, with some 30-40 per cent of exhibitors from new, different sectors
cost of living crisis. So for me the key is that we focus on innovations and a huge spread of retailers from the international chain store groups to