"Direct revenue comes from organising exhibitions and spending by foreign exhibitors and visitors, but the multiplying impact of such economic activities are a great deal higher," said Vithaya Sintharapantorn, exhibition director for the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau.

While visitors to Thailand belonging to the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (Mice) sector account for only 5 per cent of total arrivals, their share of revenue is about 12 per cent. Convention delegates spend an average of Bt15,000 to Bt20,000 a day, compared with Bt3,000 to Bt4,000 for leisure travellers.

"Trade exhibitions are powerful, flexible and highly cost-effective. Business transactions resulting from them and related activities are significant wealth generators," said Vithaya.

He said the local trade-exhibition industry had come a long way in the past decade. Thailand now offers world-class exhibition facilities, world-class organisers, a strong cast of exhibition cluster components and many well-established exhibitions that serve not only local industries, but regional ones as well.

Thailand also stands out in Southeast Asia in several other industry sectors, including agribusiness, metals, manufacturing, gems and jewellery, and gifts and handicrafts.

"There's a lot of potential, not only for expansion, but also for innovation in serving all of Southeast Asia, which has a total population of more than 500 million and a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of US$12 trillion (Bt454 trillion)," he said.

Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Board recently formulated four strategies to help sustain economic growth over the next decade. One is development of the tourism industry, especially promotion of the Mice sector.

Vithaya says Thailand's robust economic climate has experienced annualised GDP growth of about 6 per cent over the past four years, while the growth rate for trade exhibitions has been close to 12 per cent.

Also, bureaucratic bottlenecks and institutional dampeners on business development are being swept away in an ongoing process that strongly favours many sectors, not least the exhibition industry.

Vithaya said strategic partnerships were being created between ministries, state enterprises and agencies and private local and international trade-show organisers, all of them helping to support Thailand's bid to become Asean's exhibition hub.

Suchat Sritama

The Nation