Piscina & Wellness Barcelona 2019 brings together international leaders in the industry

Organised by Fira de Barcelona in collaboration with the Spanish Association of Professionals of the Swimming Pool Sector (ASOFAP), the fair will take place from 15 to 18 October 2019 in halls 1 and 2 of the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via venue. The fair brings together the entire value chain of swimming pool products for residential and public use, as well as facilities, equipment and accessories related to wellness, spa and fitness. Some of the leading companies in the industry such as Fluidra, Espa, Pentair, Zodiac, Renolit, QP Group, Kripsol, Rosa Gres, Hayward, Abrisud and Inbeca have already confirmed their presence at Piscina & Wellness Barcelona 2019, with 34% higher participation than the previous edition on the same dates. If this trend continues, the organisation expects to grow by 15% both in exhibitors and on area and bring together 400 direct exhibitors on over 30,000 m2 next October.

The equipment, products and services designed especially for tourist establishments such as hotels and campsites, health and wellness centres, leisure and sports facilities, will once again be an important part of the overall offering of the fair, with special emphasis on wellness and spa and in aquatic facilities for recreational use. To take advantage of synergies in this area, as a new feature, the fair will expand the commercial area dedicated to the fitness industry with the participation of companies such as Technogym, Thomas Wellness Group or Nutrisport, among others. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the coincidence in dates and premises with the International Caravanning Exhibition, which attracts professionals related to the world of camping from all over Spain who will be able to visit Piscina & Wellness and participate in its activities.

At the same time, the fair will once again welcome the Wellness Experience, a space that creates a wellness centre in which visitors will be able to try out its functionalities, ask experts questions and learn about the latest trends in design, equipment and technology, as well as services and treatments to offer. This showroom will incorporate different rooms such as reception, waiting room, changing rooms, bathrooms, treatment booths, water area, and also a fitness room that this year will be bigger than other editions to respond to the growing interest of professionals related to the tourism industry that visit the fair. In fact, a properly equipped gym is the third decision factor among travellers seeking accommodation, becoming an increasingly strategic space for campsites, wellness centres and hotels.

The Aia Arquitectura studio, which won the 2017 Swimming Pool Award for the best “Wellness Centre Swimming pool” for its work in the Metropolitan Sports Centre of Badalona (Spain), will be responsible for the design of the different rooms of the Wellness Experience design, paying attention at the dimension, the setting, the materials and pavements used and the technological solutions installed. On the other hand, the architect Josep Ferrando, expert in the use of recyclable materials and in sustainable structures projects, will in charge of the common areas and of the spaces dedicated to the hall activities.

In addition, Wellness Experience will host professional conferences in which over 30 experts related to technical, medical, physiotherapeutic, commercial or management specialities will participate as speakers. Piscina & Wellness Barcelona will also include the 4th edition of the Aquatic Leisure Symposium, an event of interest for hotels, campsites and parks that want to update their aquatic facilities.

In addition, Piscina & Wellness Barcelona represents an important industry knowledge platform and trends through its activity areas, which show the real application of the products and the solutions presented. Thus, this year’s fair enhances the Innovation Zone, an area where some of the best innovations and technological applications of the Industry 4.0 will be exhibited, especially those related to the digitisation of maintenance and control of aquatic facilities and customer knowledge. The objective is to show how to achieve increasingly connected and sustainable facilities that guarantee energy savings and the rational use of resources and that contribute to improving both the use experience and the costs of operating and maintaining the pools.

At the same time, in the same space, personalised finance advice will be offered by technicians of the Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF in its Spanish initials) and internationalisation advice by ICEX Spain Exports and Investments and Acció, Generalitat of Catalunya’s Agency for Business Competitiveness. There will also be interviews between key exhibitors and buyers selected and invited directly by the organisation. Among them, the most influential nationally and internationally are from France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Mexico and other countries in Latin America.

The fair will also host the 2nd Latin American – European Business Meeting, with the participation of important international buyers who will explain details of their markets of origin and will participate in business meetings with representatives of the companies exhibiting at the show. Piscina & Wellness Barcelona will also be the framework for the presentation of the Sector Barometer 2019 prepared by the fair and ASOFAP, and the World Alliance of Pool & Spa Associations (WAPSA) meeting that brings together various associations of the pool and wellness sector from all over the world.

The fair will also offer a space dedicated to startups, organised in partnership with Fluidra Accelera, where fifteen emerging firms will be presented with disruptive solutions in the water, aquatic facilities and wellness industries. In the same area, these entrepreneurs will explain the main characteristics of their proposals to other companies in the sector and investors.

The fair will call for a new edition of the Piscina & Wellness Barcelona Awards, organised with the support of ASOFAP, which recognises the excellence of the companies in the sector that are committed to R&D+i. The awards will be given in the categories of best residential swimming pool, swimming pool renovation, wellness pool, public swimming pool and the most innovative product among those presented at the fair.

In addition, in partnership with the CCO of “Tribuna Termal”, Teresa Pacheco, the fair holds the Wellness Experience Awards for the best spa, health resort, thalassotherapy centre, and thermal or wellness technique. The fair also organises the International Architecture Student Competition, coordinated by the architect Santiago González of the NAOS studio, on water installations projects. The award ceremony of these three events will take place during the fair.

In 2019 Piscina & Wellness Barcelona is celebrating a quarter of a century. To commemorate the event, the fair will prepare an exhibition with the winning products during the editions of the Piscina & Wellness Awards held to date, as well as a photographic exhibition of the different editions of the fair.