WAN-Ifra is to hand organisation of its annual World Publishing Expo over to a new joint venture with børding Holding.

Future expos will be combined with børding's DCX Digital Content Expo.

Managing director of børding messe Alexander R. Petsch will manage the new company, named Publishing Exhibition.

WAN-Ifra has organised the World Publishing Expo trade exhibition for 46 years, making it the leading international exhibition for the news media industry. It says the trend towards digitisation has brought about a fundamental change in the newspaper industry, and with the launch of the new DCX Digital Content Expo, the two aim to substantially support and develop the growth market of digital content production.

At the same time the tradition of the Ifra World Publishing Expo will be continued as the interface between print and cross-media publishing. The common objective of both organisations will be to offer WAN-Ifra customers and members the best networking platforms.

Starting next year, the two exhibitions will be held simultaneously under one roof.

børding Holding is one of Switzerland's largest private exhibition organisers, specialising in the design, organisation and realisation of trade fairs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It also runs online marketing exhibitions including Swiss Online Marketing (SOM), "Swiss e-Business Expo", "DMX Austria" and "eCom World".

This year's World Publishing Expo event in Vienna (October 10-12) has been adversely affected, not only by the diminishing market for newspaper printing equipment, but by its coincidence with the DRUPA printing trade show, held this May/June. Many exhibitors opted not to participate in both.