In the two months (eight weeks) of September and October there will be over a dozen important tradeshows in Asia. All these shows need exhibitors and buyers, which puts a lot of financial strain on the organizers and exhibitors and requires the buyers to spend a lot of time outside of their offices and thus away from their actual work.
Some important exhibitors have contacted us and pointed out this problem. They are spending a lot of money on these events, yet they end up meeting mostly the same buyers.
Potential buyers told us that they have to spend much of their working time on traveling to and attending all the important events.
We at Tourism-Insider, having worked in the industry for 20 years and regularly visiting the many tradeshows ourselves, understand that it is very difficult for the organizers to find a suitable date that is fair to all parties involved and not too close to another event. We are also aware that all tradeshows have a right to exist, since all organizers have their own individual goals.
But we would like to initiate a professional discussion about this problem, and to prompt the show organizers to engage in dialog.
To start things off, we have asked the top managers of Asia’s two most important and largest tradeshows to answer our questions and to briefly introduce their shows. For ITB Asia (October 20-22, 2010) in Singapore we interviewed Nino Grüttke, and Managing Director Darren Ng answered for IT&CMA and CTW (October 4-8, 2010) in Bangkok.
We hope that our initiative will act as a small ”kick off” to bringing the organizers together to discuss the dates of their shows.
We know that this is a major undertaking, but spreading out the shows somewhat will bring more efficiency and success to both organizers and exhibitors. For buyers, additional time will mean better opportunities in their meetings with exhibitors and more time for “buying” and talking to exhibitors about new ideas and possibilities.
If required, we at Tourism-Insider would be glad to help in moderating any discussions.
