Thai exhibition market remains resilient

Written by changthai11 on Saturday, September 27th, 2008

KRISSANA PARNSOONTHORN

Thailand’s exhibition business is improving remarkably and its outlook is still promising now that the local political crisis has eased, say industry executives. Supawan Teerarat, a director for exhibitions of the Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), said the exhibition market is getting back on track after the state of emergency was repealed and Somchai Wongsawat sworn in as the new prime minister.

”It’s back to normal now. What I can say at the moment is visitor confidence has been restored but numbers won’t increase for the coming shows next month. It will take time, but those who have to come for business purposes and trades won’t change their plans,” she said.

The exhibition business is part of the meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition (Mice) industry, and generates about 13 billion baht in revenue for the country or one-fifth of overall Mice revenue.

Exhibitions are less sensitive than meetings and incentive activities as they are mainly for business and trade negotiations, not holiday purposes, she said.

While the state of emergency was in force in Bangkok, Ms Supawan said, only two exhibitions _ InterSec and Mobility _ were postponed until next year as major visitors from the United States and Europe would not confirm their participation.

David Aitken, general manager of Bangkok Exhibition Services, the organiser of Food & Hotel Thailand 2008, said the four-day show from Sept 17-20 at Siam Paragon had a very positive result with a 16.7% increase in visitors from last year with no cancellations.”I think the Thai exhibition market is very resilient and international organisers are still confident to organise their shows here. The TCEB also reacted immediately to the problems with a clear view on the political situation in Thailand,” he said.

Paul Woodward, manager for the Asia Pacific Chapter of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, said Thailand remained the centre of exhibitions in Asean even though the country has a political crisis.

”It’s unlikely that other countries can take advantage of Thailand’s internal problems to become the new exhibition hub,” he said.

In fact, being an exhibition hub requires a strong infrastructure, tourist attractions, a strategic location and a healthy mix of local and international shows, he said.