Approximately 90 companies from Spain’s ceramic tile industry exhibited as a group and with the support of ICEX (the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade) at the 26th Cersaie fair, in Bologna, Italy. This group of exporters has once again comprised the most abundant foreign delegation at the annual Italian event.

The substantial industry representation at Cersaie confirmed that Spain’s exports of ceramic tile are still high, even though the industry on a whole is feeling a crunch.

More than 54-percent of the international exhibitors were from Spain. With the support of the Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturer’s Association (ASCER) who rolled out a package of promotional activities this year, one of which was a catalog of exhibitors that included information about each Spanish company present at the fair. Copies of the catalog (13,000 in all) were printed and distributed before the show to professionals in more than 60 countries.

Coming directly from Cersaie, highly respected international design and architecture magazine Domus published a special issue of the magazine in collaboration with Tile of Spain. The special issue was released in October 2008 to be available at Cersaie with the collaborative theme centering on the applications for Spanish ceramic tiles in architecture.

As well as the special issue of Domus, ASCER also booked two advertorials in Italian trade publications, Tile Italia and Tile International. Visitors that flocked to Cersaie were educated about Spanish ceramic tile through all the information provided on Spain’s tile sector in the Cersaie specials and the leading Italian tile trade publications, while the advertorial provided reinforcement for the exhibitors’ promotional initiatives by having featured images of products and news about their companies.

In addition, advertisements ran in Interni and Abitare. These were in line with the current “Be Creative” advertising campaign to raise awareness of the multiple applications of ceramic tiles amongst specifiers.

ASCER, as usual, manned an information office where visitors obtained information on Spain’s ceramic tile industry, companies and products.

For more about tile produced in Spain, contact Tile of Spain Center at the Trade Commission of Spain, 2655 Le Jeune Road, Suite 1114, Coral Gables, FL 33134. Call (305) 446-4387 or visit www.spaintiles.info.