It is a sector that generates between 3 and 4 billion euros in turnover every year in Italy, struggling with incomplete national legislation and conflicting regional laws, in which private enterprise is frustrated by public monopolies, technological innovations are revolutionizing products and services and in which the arrival of international finance and funds with their aggregating work improves profitability and supply but also accelerates the dispersion of local historical heritage and traditions.
These are common and transversal themes across many sectors of Made in Italy which the funeral and cemetery industry is discussing in Bologna in recent days, gathered on the occasion of Tanexpo, “International funeral & cemetery exhibition”, the leading European event in the sector, which from 4 to 6 April will host 225 exhibitors in 23 thousand square meters of three BolognaFiere pavilions, over 30% from abroad.
The return to pre-Covid success
«It is an edition that finally returns to pre-pandemic numbers – underlines Alberto Leanza, president of the biennial Tanexpo exhibition –. In 2018 we welcomed 210 exhibitors and 15 thousand visitors, this year if we look at the data on pre-registrations and the influx of this first day of the fair we might even exceed 15 thousand entries”. The event has been the B2B reference for funeral industry professionals in Europe for over 30 years and the privileged showcase of market news and trends. «A coherent mirror of the great changes taking place, starting from the increase in secular rites and the exponential growth of cremations, which have come to account for 30% of the total burials in Italy – explains Leanza – but with enormous territorial differences, because ranging from 80% of cremations in Milan to 5% in Reggio Calabria. And not only due to different cultural approaches but due to the lack of cremation facilities in Central and Southern Italy.”
The numbers of the sector
Today along the country there are around 16 thousand cemeteries and just 150 funeral homes, with 6,500 funeral homes operating mainly in the local area, 25 thousand employees and a business which for burials alone is around 2 billion euros (the average expenditure per funeral is 3,500 euros and every year just over 600 thousand people die in Italy). «Made in Italy also boasts excellence in the funeral sector – recalls Leanza – whether we are talking regarding coffins, urns, hearses and innovation runs on the double track of digitalisation and sustainability, as in the whole industry, from biodegradable urns or which transform into trees once buried in full electric hearses.”
The Tanexpo Awards are back this year for the second time, prizes assigned by an international jury to the most innovative projects, while in the Tanexpo Tech area, which might potentially become a sub-show, the most advanced digital service solutions will be highlighted for the cemetery, crematoriums, businesses in the sector and the families of the deceased.
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2024-04-04 17:50:36
