BMTA 2026 – Mediterranean Exchange of Archaeological Tourism

The Borsa Mediterranea del Turismo Archeologico — the Mediterranean Exchange of Archaeological Tourism — reaches its twenty-eighth edition from Thursday 29 October to Sunday 1 November 2026 at Paestum, in the province of Salerno. It is the only trade fair in the world given over to archaeological tourism, and it is held in the halls of the former SAIM tobacco factory at Borgo Cafasso, two kilometres from the Greek temples. Admission is free.

The fair does three things at once. It is an exhibition floor, where archaeological parks, museums, regions and tour operators present what they have to offer; it is a business appointment, through a workshop that puts those exhibitors in front of foreign buyers selected by ENIT, the Italian national tourist board; and it is a conference, with sixteen thematic sections on the management, protection and public use of archaeological heritage. Alongside it runs ArcheoVirtual, an international exhibition of multimedia, interactive and virtual technologies applied to archaeology, which is where the sector usually shows what it has learned to do since the previous autumn.

The BMTA also hosts the International Archaeological Discovery Award “Khaled al-Asaad”, now in its twelfth edition, promoted by the fair together with the magazine Archeo and presented at Paestum during the event. It is named after the Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, long associated with the site of Palmyra, and this year it goes to one of five archaeological discoveries of 2025 shortlisted by the organisers.

Practical details

• When: Thursday 29 October to Sunday 1 November 2026
• Where: NEXT – Nuova Esposizione Ex Tabacchificio, Via Cafasso 21, Borgo Cafasso, Capaccio Paestum (Salerno), Italy
• Admission: free, with online registration; reduced rail fares with Trenitalia
• Organised by: Leader srl, Salerno — founder and director Ugo Picarelli
• Promoted by: Regione Campania and the Archaeological Parks of Paestum and Velia
• Under the patronage of: the City of Capaccio Paestum, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Conference of the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces, and ANCI

Background

The fair was founded in 1998 by Ugo Picarelli, with the backing of the Province of Salerno under its then president Alfonso Andria, in the year Paestum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. For its first fifteen years it moved between hotels some six kilometres from the excavations, then between marquees and geodesic domes pitched near the UNESCO site, before settling into the restored tobacco factory it occupies today. That building is itself the subject of a Cultural Heritage Online place card: a piece of industrial archaeology that the critic Gillo Dorfles called the symbol of the Piana del Sele.

The full programme, the list of exhibitors and the timetable of the sixteen sections are published by the organisers edition by edition on borsaturismoarcheologico.it, and were not complete when this page was written.