CEMATEX announces that Spain will host the 18th edition of ITMA, the world’s largest exhibition of textile and garment machinery technology. It will be held at the Fira de Barcelona exhibition centre from 20 to 26 June 2019. Fira de Barcelona won the international bid organised by CEMATEX, the owner of the ITMA and ITMA ASIA shows, after fierce competition from three other short-listed bidders out of an original list of 9 venues. ITMA was last held in Barcelona in 2011 where visitorship exceeded 100,000 from 138 countries. 90% of the visitors came from outside of Spain, and the international mix of visitors and buyers was very well received by exhibitors. Mr Charles Beauduin, President of CEMATEX, stated “We are delighted to bring ITMA back to Barcelona. The selection process took us 2 years and our investigations into all the 9 potential venues and their services were very detailed. We enjoyed an extremely successful show in Barcelona in 2011 and our exhibitors and visitors were very impressed with t he facilities and i nfrastructure on site. We are looking forward to another great event there in 2019”. Mr Agustin Cordon, CEO of Fira de Barcelona, added “We are delighted and honoured to have been selected once more to host the ITMA show, and our team is looking forward to welcoming exhibitors and visitors back to the city. We gained a lot of experience from working on the 2011 show and are confident of achieving another very successful event”. CEMATEX has appointed an official accommodation agency, B-network, to manage the hotel accommodation services for ITMA 2019, following on from its very professional and successful management of accommodation for the 2011 show. An official website has already been set up (www.itmahotels. b-network.com) offering very competitive rates in a wide range of hotels. Preparations for this year’s ITMA in Milan (12 to 19 November) are continuing, with over 1,600 exhibitors from more than 40 countries taking part. Expectations are that a trade visitorship of over 100,000 from more than 140 countries will participate.