A #Proptech company in Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF): worth it?

Property Market Technologies has participated as an exhibitor for the first time in Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) (the 83rd one).

The main question we confronted back in Athens: does all the fuzz worth it?

The answer is not straightforward; “Yes, but…”

Thessaloniki International Fair is maybe the most important exhibition event in Greece, where traditionally each government announces the economic program of the forthcoming year.

There were good networking opportunities with public or semi-public companies and companies based or operating in USA (83rd TIF’s honoured country). High and middle-level executives were available at their pavilions and the majority of them was quite open to short meetings.

Undoubtfully the second most organized and interesting pavilion, after the US one, was the one hosting start-ups and start-up hubs. So, if you were a start-up, you could fast gather useful information and insights for your project. Hosted start-ups were covering a wide spectrum of industries from medicine to agriculture. Unfortunately real estate had weak presence, mainly IoT and GIS apps. Nevertheless, we think that some of the interesting technologies and business models could be deployed in the vast and complex universe of “real estate”.

Another interesting part of the Fair was the rich program with everyday events, mainly in the US pavilion. Real estate was considered mainly at the city level (architecture, smart cities etc).

Technology was unsurprisingly the favourite theme: from entry-level presentations to case-studies; fancy contemporary topics like blockchain were the most prevalent ones. The majority of events were short-term. Therefore, you could take a quick view about many things and increase your networking opportunities, as speakers and audience were added to your target group.

But…

The mix of the Fair participants was the main problem; TIF hosted under its roof US IT giants, ex-public or public oligopolies, Northern Greece universities, start-ups, energy companies and an ocean of local companies and associations. However, the majority of the participants were small producers and retailers (food, mechanical equipment, household goods, furniture etc). Unfortunately, the pavilion hosting foreign companies (except the ones of the honoured country) followed the same pattern and it resembled more to a huge bazaar.

Both technology and property sectors had a very small presence in TIF. Technology players were either US giants like Google or small companies/freelancers who develop Internet sites and e-shops. Local mid and big IT companies were absent. Things were more disheartening regarding real estate sector: the representatives of the ex-locomotive of the Greek economy were the real estate parts of ex-public companies like GAIOSE (real estate part of the ex-public national railway company), some small construction companies and traders of construction materials; even the local property agents association was missing.

Lastly, two technological problems of the Fair have seriously impeded our efforts. Firstly WiFi provided by Helexpo was terrible for both exhibitors and visitors. Therefore, we experienced organizational and logistics problems both at our stand and implementing our networking plan. Moreover, no app has been provided by HELEXPO for arranging appointments. So we had to wander around and if the proper person was absent, we had to arrange an appointment or come again if the etc.

Would we participate again next year? Maybe not…