Julia González has been appointed director of fashion, beauty and lifestyle fairs organized by Madrid-based trade-show operator Ifema. With this designation González is responsible for the direction of Momad and ShoesRoom in its two annual editions, 1001 Weddings, Salon Look, Women Evolution and Salon Look Chile. We sat down with González and talked about her new tasks, challenges and the development of digital strategies in the beauty segment.
You’ve been recently appointed director of the fashion, beauty and lifestyle fairs organized by Ifema. What are currently the biggest challenges in this segment?
Our main challenge is to keep our events as the best meeting points for the fashion, beauty and lifestyle sector. Coming to Ifema means discovering the latest trends, knowing what will be on the market in the near future and who the most important actors are. With the ever quickening advance of networking, we must continue to provide innovative tools so that you keep coming to our fair, to stay up to date with the latest in our sector.
You and your management team are already working intensively on the increased digitization and internationalization of the next trade fair editions. What innovations can we expect in the next issue?
The whole team is working very hard to bring what is now a trend in the digital ecosystem to the trade fair environment. We must build a bridge so that our traditional and digital worlds can meet, converse and understand each other. It is wonderful to have such advanced digitization processes but a physical encounter such as our events is 100% necessary so that this valuable sectoral meeting point continues to achieve the best results. Regarding internationalization, we are working on a very comprehensive program for international buyers so that they get to know first-hand the interesting brands that come to our events. For example, at the last edition of Momad, we had 44 buyers with decision-maker profiles from 21 countries.
You have years of experience in the trade show field of aesthetics and beauty. How do you think this field has developed in recent years?
As I said, digitization and internationalization are two factors that have greatly influenced the movement of these sectors. E-commerce and digital strategies that have come to prominence over the last ten years have been and continue to be a challenge for professionals in the sector, who must, in addition to being pioneers and experts in their work, also know all these digital tools to allow them to grow so as not to be left behind. The sector has adapted to technology and advances in general. For this reason, fairs such as the one we hold at Ifema have managed to continue, even grow, in times of economic downturn.
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