While globalisation sees the world become smaller, the opportunities we have to learn from different countries and embrace new celebrations only continue to grow. As the party industry continues to become more multi-cultural and inclusive, we decided to take a virtual trip to find out more about a number of key territories and their local customs. Our round-the-world journey sees us drop in on the USA, Italy, Holland, Poland and Spain to find out more.
The different festivals and customs of Spanish-speaking countries are well-known throughout the world. Almost every city, town and village has its own festival of some kind, while some are famous all over the world, such as the fireworks of Las Fallas in Valencia and the tomato throwing at La Tomatina. Carlos Perez, general manager of My Other Me, explained more:
“There are so many occasions to party in Spain, but the carnival, in February, is the most important. Halloween is getting stronger and in summer there are countless local festivals where people dress up. Spanish parties used to be quite specific but they really are becoming less and less different from the rest of the world. Globalisation has worked here too! The next 12 months here will be interesting.
The pandemic has hit Spain hard.
For this reason people are afraid to celebrate parties again. At the same time, people in España are very festive and I am sure that when the pandemic is over the parties will be more massive than ever! Online sales have grown significantly and many of the physical party stores have closed. My Other Me has always been very strong in the toy store channel. This has withstood the pandemic quite well and therefore we continue to develop actions there. Our plans are to accelerate our development outside of Spain. We have participated in the Halloween and Party expo show in the USA and are looking for commercial agents and distributors in the main European markets.
In terms of product we have some very exciting licences such as Power Players from ZAG. Also this year we launched a line of baby costumes with movements and sounds that are very new. We have worked hard to go virtual and with no trade fairs, we have had to evolve to facilitate access to our products for our customers. We have also built a virtual stand in our showroom in Alicante so that customers who want to visit us virtually can do so easily.”
