AIPH International Horticultural Expos showcase beauty and creativity, with a magnificent Expo Park attracting many international participants, who build their pavilions lasting up to six months. The sites range from the smallest of 25 hectares to the largest of 500 hectares or more. Organisers spend millions developing these international spectacles that can stimulate the economic development of entire cities and transform the international reputation of hosting regions. 

Each event exposes millions of visitors to the world of horticulture and helps communicate the vital role that plants, flowers and the landscape play in improving the environment and the health and wellbeing of citizens. The Expos stimulate city greening and create better places to live.

From now until 2027, AIPH has approved the following Expos for cities in China, Turkey, Qatar, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Japan. You can see the AIPH-approved Expos calendar at https://aiph.org/expos/calendar/:

A1 World Horticultural Expos

Expo 2022 Floriade, Netherlands, 14 April–9 October 2022. Theme: Growing Green Cities 

Expo 2023 Doha, Qatar, 2 October 2023–28 March 2024. Theme: Green Desert, Better Environment 

World Horticultural Exhibition 2027 Yokohama, Japan, March–September 2027, Theme: Scenery of the Future for Happiness
 

B International Horticultural Exhibitions

Expo 2021 Yangzhou, China, 8 April–8 October 2021. Theme: Green City, Healthy Life

Expo 2021 Hatay, Turkey, 1 April–30 June 2022. Theme: Garden of Civilisations

Expo 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, 23 April–31 October 2023. Theme: Nature-Friendly City and Sensitivity

Suncheon Bay International Garden Expo 2023, South Korea, 22 April–22 October 2023. Theme: The Garden of the Earth

International Horticultural Exhibition Chengdu 2024, China, 26 April-28 October 2024. Theme: City in parks and life in poetries

Expo İzmir 2026, Turkey, 1 May-31 October 2026, Theme: Living in Harmony

C International Horticultural Show 

Euroflora 2022, Italy, 23 April until 8 May 2022. Theme: Voyage of Rare Beauty

AIPH ensure Expos are successful through a defined approval and monitoring process and through regulating the number of permitted Expos. This calendar lets you know of the current dates available for your city to host. You can view the bidding calendar at https://aiph.org/expos/bidding-calendar/

Putting Sustainability at the heart of AIPH-approved Expos

We are the world’s champion for the power of plants, and AIPH is committed to a sustainable future in which humanity, technology, and nature exist in a healthy and stable equilibrium.

To cement our dedication to a sustainable future, AIPH has developed a new Sustainability Policy with regulations for Expo Organisers, with the support of Independent Sustainability Expert Mr David Stubbs. He was formerly Head of Sustainability for London 2012 Olympics & Paralympic Games. He has been working with AIPH to help us identify how we can create best practices for Expo Organisers when planning and staging horticultural Expos and continue to ensure they are the world’s most sustainable major events.

Together we identified five thematic areas related to what we do and where we believe we can make the most positive impact:

1. Climate action – using plants and green spaces to support climate adaptation and resilience programmes in urban environments

2. Biodiversity conservation – promoting nature in cities and sustainable horticultural practices worldwide

3. Sustainable sourcing and resource management – adopting circular economy principles, reducing plastic waste and other forms of pollution, supporting efficient production and ethical supply chain management

4. Equity & inclusion – promoting plant growing and green spaces for all, upholding fair and equitable practices across the horticultural value chain, diversity, and human rights

5. Education & awareness raising – engaging, informing, and inspiring people to appreciate the importance of plants and the places where they grow, and to take action to protect and enhance their local environment through plant growing

Through this work, our sustainability strategy will substantially help towards several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Stubbs said, “Having a programme which can support the realisation of some of these goals is a very exciting opportunity for the association.

“AIPH has the ambition for World Horticultural Expos to be recognised as among the world’s most sustainable major events. When you think about how these sites can promote biodiversity conservation and create green legacies, this is a great opportunity. It’s about helping these cities to improve their adaptation and resilience to climate change.

“We must also recognise that putting on these events can create a lot of impacts – waste, construction impacts, congestion – unless they are planned and delivered properly you don’t necessarily realise these benefits. The key to this strategy we are developing is to direct organisers to a much more sustainable approach.”

Stubbs cited the example of the London Olympic Park, which resulted in the cleaning up of a polluted river and industrial land, the use of renewable energy, sustainable materials, nature-friendly features such as streetlights that face away from the river to avoid disturbing bats – and an accessible parkland was created for people to visit and enjoy.”

A recording of this presentation is here: https://youtu.be/cAQfETkwrEc

To view forthcoming Expos visit: https://aiph.org/expos/calendar/

To look back at 60 years of AIPH Expos visit: https://aiph.org/expos/history/

To find out more about AIPH International Horticultural Exhibitions watch: https://youtu.be/y4txnEQ8szc

AIPH Expo Support Programme

The AIPH has a support programme to help stage a World International Horticultural Expo and to bring together experts from different industries, often from outside the host city, to build together and deliver benefits for all before, during and after the Expo. Our Organiser’s Expo Guide is packed full of information. You can find many details, including our regulations and applications on the Exhibitions page on our website.

AIPH would be delighted to discuss the opportunity to host an expo, so please do speak to our AIPH Senior International Relations Manager treve.evans@aiph.org

[Source: AIPH] This conference presents an excellent opportunity to learn more about hosting or being involved with an International Horticultural Expo and to network with expo organisers, city representatives interested in hosting an expo, urban developers, AIPH members, NGOs, international city and environmental organisations and suppliers to major events.

Millions are spent on developing these international spectacles that can stimulate the development of entire cities and transform the international reputation of hosting regions. Each Exhibition attracts many international participants and millions of visitors and lasts up to six months, with sites ranging in size from the smallest of 25 hectares to the largest of 500 hectares or more. Every Expo is carefully regulated, steered, and monitored by AIPH.

The period from now until 2027 already includes AIPH approved expos in China, Turkey, Qatar, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Japan. The following Expos will be submitting their progress reports on 19 October.

A1 World Horticultural Expos

The World Horticultural Expos include:

• Expo 2022 Floriade (the Netherlands)

• Expo 2023 Doha (Qatar)

• World Horticultural Exhibition 2027 Yokohama (Japan).

B International Horticultural Exhibitions

The International Horticultural Exhibitions include:

• Expo 2021 Yangzhou (China)

• Expo 2021 Hatay (Turkey)

• Expo 2023 Kahramanmaraş (Turkey)

• Suncheon Bay International Garden Expo (South Korea).

• International Horticultural Exhibition Chengdu 2024 (China)

• Expo İzmir 2026 (Turkey)

There will also be news on progress from the organisers of the International Horticultural Show, Euroflora 2022. More Exhibitions will be approved in upcoming meetings.

Putting Sustainability at the heart of AIPH-approved Expos

Sustainability is now a high priority. As the world’s champion for the power of plants, AIPH is committed to a sustainable future in which humanity, technology, and nature exist in a healthy and stable equilibrium.

To cement our dedication to a sustainable future, AIPH has developed a new Sustainability Policy. Independent Sustainability Expert Mr David Stubbs, of Sustainability Experts Limited, will present the policy and Rules for Expos at the Virtual Expo Conference. These rules will describe the standards for the planning and staging of horticultural expos to ensure they are the world’s most sustainable major events.

New AIPH Reporting procedures

During the conference, AIPH will reveal news on the new reporting procedures for approved Expos. Ms Elena Terekhova, AIPH International Relations Manager, and Mr Peter Ward, Managing Director of WeTrack, will introduce the WeTrack online programme that Expos will be required to use for reporting as well as the benefits of using this as an event management tool.

WeTrack’s project management software has been used by organisers of some of the world’s most prestigious events, venues, and organisations, including World Triathlon, the FIA, Expo 2020 Dubai, Wimbledon, and the International Cricket Council. It enables teams and departments to track tasks and projects, collaborate better with stakeholders, and build, download, and share custom reports.

In the same platform, organisations can then integrate their sustainability, readiness and operational planning, providing consistency from the early stages of planning your Expo, to the final stages of delivery. Bespoke, automated reporting underpins every stage of this process.

We are grateful to our Gold Sponsor PERA Event for their support of the conference.

Registration for the virtual conference is free. For more information on this event, visit our website.

[Source: AIPH] The AIPH 2021 International Green City conference brought together a worldwide audience of professionals, organisations, city councils and government administrations to hear how international experts on greening urban spaces have met this challenge. 

Incremental steps to reach for the skies

For the keynote speaker, Professor Rob Adams, his journey to greening the city began in the early 1980s in Melbourne, Australia, when he was an urban designer helping to write a 1985 strategy plan to make Melbourne “a better city to attract people”. Through incremental actions to improve the characteristics of the city that they already had, he spoke passionately on how they reclaimed street space, widened pathways, tore up the “asphalt and planted trees” creating active recreational areas with natural shading canopies. In 1992 there was a breakthrough in traffic routing, pushing forward the greening and pedestrianisation of the city. Melbourne is now recognised as one of the most liveable cities and acts as an exemplar of the battle against climate change. 

In a question-and-answer session after his speech, Prof Adams said a “political inertia problem for many cities is holding back progress”.

Cool streets and community spirit

For the past ten years, Vienna in Austria has been planning and managing its green transition. To put this into context, Vienna has 23 boroughs, substantial public transport infrastructure and a population that grows annually by 25,000 with 62% living in subsidised housing. Now Vienna is 53% green, and its journey has included the collaboration of the public and private sector, “shared visions, and strategies and a culture of working together closely over longer periods of time”. The family has been at the heart of the vision to create spaces for children to grow up and thrive, changing brownfield sites into living quarters, connecting to the city with green walkways and the public’s community spirit with urban farms. Artificial islands protect the city from flooding and are also weekend retreats to unwind. Cool streets pop up for citizens to escape the summer heat, with no concrete visible, only vertical planting and shady trees. 

Former Vice Mayor Ms Maria Vassilakou proudly took us on a virtual tour of the city that holds the number one title as the world’s most liveable city for the past three years. She is now serving as a member of the EU-Horizon Mission experts board on “Climate-neutral smart Cities”, advising the European Commission on the design and implementation of the respective mission. Ms Vassilakou added, “Urban recovery after the pandemic will pretty much rely on the transformation and the greening of public space to create cities that we love and new opportunities for us all.”

The need for better planning

Mr Peter Massini, Director of Future Nature Consulting Ltd, UK, presented an overview of greening metrics that are used in policy development, discussing some of the challenges and drawbacks and how effective they are in practice. When talking about the challenges in the UK, he said, “If we are going to make London a sustainable city, then its dense urban spaces have to provide space for people, space for wildlife, but hold functional benefits around climate change and public health.”

Empowerment for climate change

Empowerment is a vital tool, and green recovery needs a powerful voice. Ms Jennifer McKelvie, Councillor for the City of Toronto, Canada, gave insights from her experience in inspiring the next generation of climate leaders through the C40 Women for Climate mentorship programme. This programme builds upon the City of Toronto’s commitment to fighting climate change as participants work on self-initiated projects that align with TransformTO and the Resilience Strategy. Launched in 2017, TransformTO lays out a set of long-term, low-carbon goals to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions. The Resilience Strategy sets out a vision, goals, and actions to help Toronto survive, adapt, and thrive in the face of any challenge, particularly climate change.

For the love of nature

Prof. Tim Beatley, the founder of Biophilic Cities, USA, explained the power of community in making cities more nature focussed and the influence of biophilia in inspiring change. He poignantly pointed out that cities disconnect from nature, and we urgently need to find ways to reconnect. He gave examples of biodiverse activities across the globe where people are actively pursuing wildlife habitats in the buildings of city centres.

Ms Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature & Health for ICLEI Africa, described the organisation’s projects on mainstreaming nature, its benefits, and nature-based solutions into urban planning and decision-making in cities and city-regions thereby helping them become healthier, and more resilient and liveable places. She said we should be “flicking on the green switch” as a top priority for the planet, humanity and society”.  

Green City tools

Dr Audrey Timm, Technical Advisor to AIPH, presented the  latest update of the AIPH 2020 Green City Guidelines – a digital resource providing evidence that supports innovative policy and practice in green cities. It has themes on Green Neighbourhoods, Green Streets, Green Buildings, and case studies on Green Cities.

Green City case studies

AIPH’s Green City principles promotes the essential role of plants in creating vibrant urban areas in which people and businesses can thrive. We heard case studies from the following experts.

Ms Anne Jaluzot, delivered a case study of Barcelona, the city which changed traffic patterns, replacing roadways with living green, thereby increasing social interactions, and reducing pollution.

Mr Niek Roozen, the founder of Niek Roozen Landscapes bv, Netherlands, introduced the power of plant selection in dominating landscape performance, using Almere as a case study for motivating plant selection linked to function and the multi-functionality of urban greening.

Dr Andrew Hirons, Senior Lecturer in Arboriculture at Myerscough College, UK, explained the science of tree selection for city landscapes and how essential this is to creating resilience in our urban forests. He also stressed how vital plant health is, and the careful management of each tree and shrub in situ is essential for the survival of green spaces in city landscapes.  

AIPH Green City Chair, Mr Bill Hardy brought to focus the AIPH Green City initiative and how the content of this conference programme integrates with the AIPH vision as the world’s champion for the power of plants. In summing, he said, “Today there has been a wealth of information and inspiration. We have seen how new cities can be built using Green City principles. We also learnt how older cities can be fixed to meet the same goals without huge infrastructure costs. We need to rethink our streets, and make green spaces for people, not parking for cars.”

All recordings are available to watch here https://bit.ly/3u5vcAA

Green Cities Champions

AIPH is a champion for the power of plants, and at this conference, we launched the AIPH World Green City Awards 2022, to recognise and celebrate every city that champions nature in its design. Visit aiph.org/green-city/green-city-awards Register an expression of interest to receive application documentation Register your interest in the AIPH World Green City Awards. 

AIPH is grateful to our AIPH World Green City Awards Partners 2022  Biophilic Cities, Cities & Health, Trees For Cities, The Nature of Cities, ICLEI CitiesWithNature and  Urban Land Institute. Thank you to our Media Partners, FloraCulture International and Host City.

[Source: AIPH] The AIPH 2021 International Green City conference on 22 April is a chance to inspire people, organisations, city councils and government administrations to join this challenging movement and lead global thinking on the successful integration of nature into the built environment.  As part of AIPH’s Green City programme, the conference is offered free-of-charge to registered delegates.

Breaking old ‘progressive’ thinking after a global pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic brought issues around the planning of our urban spaces into sharper focus. Some people living across the urban landscape could escape the confines of lockdown and connect with nature to enjoy the benefits of good greenspaces. While for others, the crisis highlighted the fact that some built-up areas have insufficient quality greenspaces.

For our health and wellbeing, for tackling biodiversity loss, for our battle with climate change, new look urban areas are surely the way forward.

At the AIPH 2021 Green City Conference, you will hear about international innovations and advances in city greening from ‘Champions of Green Cities’ - a line-up of expert international speakers who can positively demonstrate that transforming our cities from grey to green need not be an unrealistic quest, but a practical solution.

Event Speakers who are inspiring change

“Transforming the urban landscape of central Melbourne – from grey to green” is the subject of our keynote speaker, Prof Rob Adams AM, City Architect, City of Melbourne. Prof Adams will describe Melbourne’s many actions over the last three decades to transform its downtown, starting from a realisation in 1985 that the City was going backwards financially, socially, and environmentally. The design was to focus on the movement of people and not vehicles. Since 1992, with the incremental and significant greening and reorientation of roadscapes, Melbourne has risen from the back of the pack to become, on seven occasions, the World’s most liveable city as determined by The Economist magazine. Many cities have followed what Melbourne pioneered, and it remains a powerfully influential exemplar for the battle against climate change.

Prof Adams continues his greening crusade and in a recent podcast he argued that recovery from the pandemic should involve refurbishing office buildings into apartments.

Carbon emissions did fall, and city centre air quality did improve during the Covid-19 lockdown from the reduced use of fossil fuel. While the latter may not be a permanent situation now, the images of clear skies overhead, and clear water in Venice showed that things can quickly change for a better environmental outcome. Ms Maria Vassilakou, Vienna Solutions draws from her previous experience as Vice Mayor of Vienna, and now independent advisor on urban transformations, to describe what makes a city liveable.

Ms Vassilakou serves as a member of the EU-Horizon Mission experts board on “Climate-neutral smart Cities” advising the European Commission on the design and implementation of the respective mission aiming at 100 European climate-neutral cities by 2030.

People reported feeling exposed to greater risk of infection on public transport during the pandemic, and during lockdown these systems were running at less than full capacity. Will this change now people look towards ‘returning to normal’? Mr Peter Massini, Director of Future Nature Consulting Ltd, UK, presents an overview of greening metrics that are used in policy development, discussing some of the challenges and drawbacks and how effective they are in practice. For the past 10 years he has led on green infrastructure and natural environment policy for the Greater London Authority.

Empowerment is a strong tool, and the green recovery needs a powerful voice. Ms Jennifer McKelvie, Councillor for City of Toronto, Canada, gives insights from her experience in inspiring the next generation of climate leaders through the C40 Women for Climate mentorship programme. This programme  builds upon the City of Toronto's commitment to fight climate change, as participants work on self-initiated projects that align with TransformTO and the Resilience Strategy. Launched in 2017, TransformTO lays out a set of long-term, low-carbon goals to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions. The Resilience Strategy sets out a vision, goals, and actions to help Toronto survive, adapt, and thrive in the face of any challenge, particularly climate change.

Prof. Tim Beatley, founder of Biophilic Cities, USA, explains the power of community in making cities more nature focussed, and the influence of biophilia in inspiring change.

Ms Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature & Health for ICLEI Africa describes the organisation’s projects on mainstreaming nature, its benefits, and nature-based solutions into urban planning and decision-making in cities and city regions thereby helping them become healthier, and more resilient and liveable places.

Dr Audrey Timm, Technical Advisor to AIPH announces our latest update of the AIPH 2020 Green City Guidelines – a digital resource providing evidence that supports innovative policy and practice in green cities.

Ms Anne Jaluzot, UK, delivers a case study of Barcelona, the city which changed traffic patterns, replacing roadways with living green, thereby increasing social interactions, and reducing pollution.

Mr Niek Roozen, the founder of Niek Roozen Landscapes bv, Netherlands, introduces the power of plant selection in dominating landscape performance, using Almere as a case study for motivating plant selection linked to function, and the multi-functionality of urban greening.

Dr Andrew Hirons, Senior Lecturer in Arboriculture at Myerscough College, UK, explains the science of tree selection for city landscapes, and how essential this is to creating resilience in our urban forests.

AIPH Green City Chair, Mr Bill Hardy, Canada, will bring the focus onto the AIPH Green City initiative and how the content of this conference programme integrates with the AIPH vision as the world’s champion for the power of plants.

AIPH presents the Champions of Green Cities

Launching at the AIPH 2021 Green City conference is the AIPH World Green City Awards which celebrate cities that show leadership and innovation in bringing more living green into their city.

The ongoing impact of safety measures against coronavirus means that rather than a physical international conference, the event will operate using the multi-faceted Hopin platform to host this online international conference, where delegates from around the world can meet in real-time.

Register free-of-charge for the AIPH Green City conference to hear from city leaders worldwide and find out how your city can enter the AIPH World Green City Awards. https://aiph.org/event/aiph-2021-green-city-conference/

AIPH is grateful to our World Green City Award Partners  Biophilic Cities, Cities and Health, The Nature of Cities, Trees For Cities and  Urban Land Institute. Our Event Partner  ICLEI and our Media Partners China Flowers & Horticulture, FloraCulture International, HostCity and Pod Oslonami PL.

[Source: AIPH] The International Association of Horticultural Producers, AIPH, is the world’s champion for the power of plants. Through their Green City programme, AIPH uses knowledge exchange, advocacy, and networking to increase the quality and quantity of living green in urban spaces; motivating the multifunctional benefits that this delivers to people and the planet.

The AIPH 2021 International Green City conference on 22 April is a chance to inspire people, organisations, city councils and government administrations to join this challenging movement and lead global thinking on the successful integration of nature into the built environment.  As part of AIPH’s Green City programme, the conference is offered free-of-charge to registered delegates.

Our environment, wellbeing, social cohesion, and economies are all improved by intelligently designed green space. AIPH’s Green City principles promote the essential role of plants in creating vibrant urban areas in which people and businesses can thrive.

At the AIPH 2021 International Green City Conference, you will hear about innovations and advances in city greening from ‘Champions of Green Cities’; a line-up of expert international speakers who:

•             Share best practice and experiences of how they have increased living green in cities.

•             Present innovative thinking in how living green shapes city form and function

•             Describe case studies of cross-disciplinary benefits from city greening

Event Speakers

“Transforming the urban landscape of central Melbourne – from grey to green” is the subject of our keynote speaker, Prof Rob Adams AM, City Architect, City of Melbourne. Prof Adams will describe the many actions taken by Melbourne over the last three decades to transform its downtown, starting from a realisation in 1985 that the City was going backwards financially, socially and environmentally. Like many cities around the world the centre was emptying out in favour of the suburbs, and the car was increasingly dominant. With a breakthrough in 1992, Melbourne has risen from the back of the pack to become, on seven occasions, the World’s most liveable city as determined by the Economist magazine. Many cities have followed what Melbourne pioneered, and it remains a powerfully influential exemplar for the battle against climate change.

Ms Maria Vassilakou, Vienna Solutions draws from her experience as Vice Mayor of Vienna and independent advisor on urban transformations to describe what makes a city liveable.

Mr Peter Massini, Director of Future Nature Consulting Ltd, UK, presents an overview of greening metrics that are used in policy development, discussing some of the challenges and drawbacks and how effective they are in practice.

Ms Jennifer McKelvie, Councillor for City of Toronto, Canada, gives insights from her experience in inspiring the next generation of climate leaders through the C40 Women for Climate mentorship programme.

Prof. Tim Beatley, founder of Biophilic Cities, USA, explains the power of community in making cities more nature focussed, and the influence of biophilia in inspiring change.

Ms Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature & Health for ICLEI Africa describes the organisation’s projects on mainstreaming nature, its benefits, and nature-based solutions into urban planning and decision-making in cities and city regions thereby helping them become healthier, and more resilient and liveable places.

Dr Audrey Timm, Technical Advisor to AIPH introduces the AIPH 2021 Green City Guidelines – an essential digital resource to support decision making.

Ms Anne Jaluzot, UK, delivers a case study of Barcelona, the city which changed traffic patterns, replacing roadways with living green, thereby increasing social interactions, and reducing pollution.

AIPH Green City Chair, Mr Bill Hardy, Canada, will bring the focus onto the AIPH Green City initiative and how the content of this conference programme integrates with the AIPH vision as the world’s champion for the power of plants.

AIPH presents the Champions of Green Cities

Launching at the AIPH Green City conference will be the AIPH World Green City Awards 2022 to celebrate cities that show leadership and innovation in bringing more living green into their city.

The ongoing impact of safety measures against coronavirus means that rather than a physical international conference, the event will operate using the multi-faceted Hopin platform to host this online international conference, where delegates from around the world can meet in real-time.

Register free-of-charge for the AIPH International Green City conference to hear from city leaders worldwide and find out how your city can enter the AIPH World Green City Awards. https://aiph.org/event/2021greencityconference/

AIPH is grateful to our Gold Sponsor PERA Events and AIPH World Green City Awards Partners 2022  Biophilic Cities, Cities and Health, Trees For Cities and  Urban Land Institute. Thank you to our Event Partner ICLEI, and our Media Partners FloraCulture International and Host City.

The virtual AIPH International Horticultural Expo Conference on 16 March attracted over 140 delegates online from over 50 countries worldwide, eager to listen to future International Horticultural Expos’ progress reports.

There is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the progress of these enormous events, but through adversity came stories of strong leadership, agile planning and the overwhelming spirit of resilience.

International Horticultural Expos showcase beauty and creativity, with a magnificent Expo park attracting many international participants, who build their pavilions lasting up to six months and captivating the imagination of many millions of visitors domestically and internationally. Although Covid-19 is here for the long haul, these open-air events are looking positively to the future. Every International Horticultural Expo is carefully regulated, steered, and monitored by AIPH, and the period from now until 2027 includes ten AIPH-approved expos.

The conference, on the Hopin platform, began with a progress presentation from Floriade Expo 2022 Almere. There is just one year to go until the opening. “The landscaping and planting in Almere continue, while the real estate and infrastructure near completion”, reports Chief Operating Officer for the Expo, Mr Sven Stimac. He speaks of the positive response from more than 40 countries confirming diplomatic participation in the 2022 event and more than 50 partnerships from the horticulture sector. Everything is continuing to plan, with a healthy and sensitive focus on Covid-19 prevention measures for the event in the Netherlands. Interest from people is increasing, as Mr Stimac reports more participation online in the Floriade Knowledge Programmes webinars than were initially planned for the physical seminars.

Considering the time it takes to prepare a high-quality A1 International Horticultural Exhibition and the difficulties in continuing preparations during the pandemic last year, it was agreed that Expo Doha Qatar moved from 2021 to 2023. In the progress report given by Mr Mohammed Ali Alkhoori, Secretary General of the Expo, he showed that the timeline’s shift has not put a dent in its ambitious event and legacy plans for the 179-day event theme Green Desert Better Environment.

The plans for the World Horticultural Exhibition Yokahama 2027 are “blossoming” in their early stages. Mr Soga Koji, Director-General of Kamiseya Development and World Horticulture Exhibition, and his team are working in partnership with the government to develop a master plan for the event. The venue area is nearly 100 hectares of landscape and takes inspiration from satoyama’s cultivation philosophy – derived from the Japanese words for the village (sato) and mountain (yama). The central theme is Scenery of the Future for Happiness, with four sub-themes aiming to generate new values based on horticulture and to pass on a growing legacy.

It was very clear from the presentations that the coronavirus pandemic has made progress very difficult, “but not impossible,” asserts Mrs Lan Zhou, Vice Director, Yangzhou Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Expo 2021 Yanhgzou opens in China in just a few weeks, on 8 April 2021 and continues until 8 October 2021. Mrs Lan Zhou stresses, “We have overcome many obstacles. Many people have been working very hard. We have managed to make the unimaginable happen.”

She continues: “When we made our application, we expected four million visitors would come [domestic and international] however international travel is still under strict regulation. We do hope in the latter half of our event, people can come to visit. The Department of Medical Health has worked out all the policies in place for population control and disease prevention.”

Being large in scale, AIPH International Horticultural Expos naturally draw investment into new parks and infrastructure, which become permanent additions to the city and improves residents’ quality of life. The progress report given by Expo 2021 Hatay perfectly demonstrates this action. There are two sites, Antakya and Iskenderun, on either side of a mountain, and these areas will show the rich horticultural production of the area. The organiser, Mr Hakan Arslan, explains how the transport between sites will be free and working 18 hours a day, during the event and the infrastructure will be a legacy afterwards.

Mr Harun Guzel gave many examples of how they are stimulating the horticultural industry and the Turkish landscape in Kahramanmaraş for Expo 2023 and working with and for the local people’s benefit.

Sustainability is an integral element of AIPH International Horticultural Expos and part of our philosophy. Suncheonman International Garden Expo has a grand ambition in 2023 to realise an exhibition where the entire city becomes a garden city in Korea.

Reports from our newest approvals from 30 September 2020 have been working hard on preparation. International Horticulture Exhibition Chengu 2024 has been improving the infrastructure around its Expo Park. And the organisers of Expo Izmir 2026 predict its Expo park will attract a significant number of tourists and expect 4.7million visitors.
Euroflora has had to postpone the 12th Edition in Genoa from 23 April to 8 May 2022. The organisers are planning a one-day event in September 2021 dedicated to the promotion of worldwide horticulture.

The AIPH Expo Conference presented an excellent opportunity to learn more about hosting or being involved with these major international events. AIPH is very grateful to Gold Sponsors for the conference – IGMPR and PERA Event, and our event and media partners.

If you would like to know more about the benefits of hosting an International Horticultural Expo, please contact us. We would also welcome discussions with suppliers at major events to explain the AIPH Preferred Partner programme and how your business can benefit.

Recordings of the presentations are available to watch online at www.aiph.org/event/the-expo-conference.

This article was written by Rachel Wakefield, Communications Executive and Associate Editor, AIPH

[Source: AIPH] On 2 March 2020, the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) brought together key industry players in the beautiful city of Miami, Florida – the cargo gateways of America.

The three-day event, entitled ‘Growing The Industry’ was coordinated by the association as part of its Spring Meeting, and supported by AmericanHort, to enable knowledge exchange and facilitate discussion on growing the ornamental industry.

Day one, on Monday, was the Expo Conference and it gave the international delegates the latest updates on forthcoming AIPH-approved International Horticultural Expos. Delegates heard progress reports from representatives for A1 World Horticultural Exhibitions including Expo 2021 Doha (Qatar); Expo 2022 Floriade Amsterdam Almere (the Netherlands); Expo Horticultural 2024 Łódź (Poland) and World Horticultural Exhibition 2027 Yokohama (Japan). There was also a progress report from B International Horticultural Exhibition Expo 2023 Kahramanmaraş (Turkey).

On this theme, Ibo Gülsen, managing director of IGMPR, the Netherlands, gave a speech about How Garden Tourism can benefit Expo and Legacy development and operation. An AIPH-approved outdoor exhibition gathers breeders, growers, landscapers, governments, and other invested parties to host these events that are open to the public and help to promote floriculture and the image of the host country.

In his talk, Gülsen gave a history lesson about the ancient gardens in Turkey, Babylon, Venice, Italy, and many other cities and cultures that embraced the concept of grand landscaped spaces filled with local flora and fauna. He spoke about how the same awe and delight continues to this day with more than 100 garden destinations in the world.

In the afternoon, the focus switched from garden tourism to urban living with the AIPH Green City Reports. Keynote speaker, Dr Tim Beatley Professor of Sustainable Communities in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, gave a fascinating presentation about connecting cities with nature entitled development of the Biophilic Cities movement in the USA. The biophilic cities organisation has 22 member cities globally that participate in the program, and they meet to share ideas, failures and successes.

Afterwards, there was an opportunity for members to share their latest Green City news and talking about the developments and investments. The speakers were from Chinese Taipei, the Netherlands, Brazil, South Korea and Canada. For example, Taipei is planting one million trees, Brazil has been tearing-up grey concrete spaces and planting foliage in its place, and have a community program that offers bus fares in exchange for recyclable materials. In South Korea, they are planting 10 million trees and want to turn “grey into green”.