Statement on the postponement of Funergal

Dear exhibitors and visitors:

Expourense, the entity that organizes FUNERGAL International Fair of Funeral Products and Services, informs that the fair will be postponed to May 2022, because of the special social and sanitary situation, provoked by Covid-19 in Spain.

The I International Congress of Funeral Directors will be celebrated on 24th and 25th of September 2020, in a mixed format: in person (in Expourense, Ourense, Spain), or on-line. In www.funergal.com , you can get all the updated information and program of the congress, that will discuss about the challenges in the management of funeral services in times of pandemic. Experts from Latin America and Europe will talk about this during the congress.

The exhibiting area of FUNERGAL will be postponed, but the Congress will take place, as a meeting point for the professionals of the funeral sector. We want to express our gratitude to all the companies and entities that had confirmed their participation in FUNERGAL. We hope that they will attend the next edition in 2022. Thank them for their fidelity to Funergal!!

We will inform about the news of the Congress. We want to send all our best wishes to a so special and essential sector for society.

Best regards.

Awards

Among the activities planned for this edition, the delivery of the 10th anniversary special Funergal International Awards that include these categories: Award for the Best Stand; Best Promotional Action; Most innovative product / service and Internationalization. In addition, Funergal will host the delivery of the National Awards of the Funeral Guide that this year include the category of “best funeral director”. The support of companies and entities that have actively participated since the first edition of the fair and that therefore have more than 20 years of fidelity to this project will also be recognized.

The Prizes section also includes one of the novelties of this edition. Funergal will deliver the International Funeral Woman Merit Award, a distinction that aims to make visible and highlight the career of professional women in a sector in which the vast majority of workers are men (in Spain women represent 26, 41% of workers in the sector, according to PANASEF data). This recognition is given in collaboration with the Mexican company Gane Ventas Funerarias, creator of the award.

News

Funergal will also host the exclusive presentation of different funeral products and services, the vast majority of them oriented to the organization of ecological and environmentally friendly funerals and that include the whole process: from the selection of a coffin of materials such as cork or the natural raffia, until the election and water-soluble urns or of natural materials such as the bone of olive or esparto; until the recycling of metal parts that do not disappear during cremation.

In addition to sustainable funerals, the trend today also involves “celebrating life” as indicated by the slogan of one of the large business groups in the sector of Spain. It is about focusing the farewell of a loved one by paying homage to his life and generating positive memories.
Another novelty of this year will be the prominence of Xacobeo and the Camino de Santiago through the different actions that some of the exhibitors are going to implement.

Sector Data

The National Association of Funeral Services, PANASEF, has recently published its “X-ray of the funeral sector 2018”, a report that reveals that in 2017 423,643 people died in Spain, 3.17% higher than in 2016. Therefore, it continues to grow Mortality in our country, placing the year 2017 as the year with the highest percentage of deaths since there are official data in this regard.

With a number of services of 423,643 deaths, during 2017 the funeral sector has billed around 1,505 million euros, 75 million euros more than the previous year due to the increase in deaths in Spain. The turnover of the sector accounts for almost 0.13% of GDP, which rises to 0.34% by including the activity of the insurance companies that sell the death line. It is estimated that there are over 1,300 funeral service companies operating in Spain that employ 11,300 workers.

The incineration continues advancing ground year after year compared to the traditional burial. In 2017 it was already the option chosen in 38.43% of deaths and it is estimated that it will reach 60% in 2025.