Bann Lae Suan Fair kicks off
BaNN Lae Suan Fair 2006 has enticed thousands of land developers, interior-design companies, home-decoration manufacturers and other firms to present their services and innovative products.
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The annual housing expo Bann Lae Suan Fair 2006 got off to a good start yesterday, having enticed new exhibitors to rent more than 300 additional booths. The fair's organiser, Amarin Printing and Publishing, expects to see as many as 500,000 visitors and a Bt5-billion cash flow throughout the six-day event.
The fair consists of 2,100 booths and runs to next Sunday under the theme "Living Unlimited". Two zones of furniture and home-decoration items for the garden have seen the highest increase in the number of booths. The extra 300 booths this year required a 50,000-square-meter area, so the fair moved from its usual venue in the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre to Muang Thong Thani's Impact Arena. Fair highlights include new ideas for building houses, five low-cost house styles, four room-decorating ideas from four renowned designers, a pocket garden and an art gallery. The garden zone seemed to attract the most visitors yesterday, with people busy looking at home-decoration items and small plants. Although visitor numbers were high, exhibitors were not confident about spending at the fair. The economic slowdown throughout this year has lowered business confidence about consumer spending. "Consumers this year are making slower purchasing decisions and willll only buy products that are really needed for use in a very short time," said Smarnchai Atipunumphai, CEO of Leowood Intertrade. He said people could quickly switch to another company if the first one failed to serve their immediate needs, which is a problem for many products that require a certain preparation and installation period. Rarin Utakapan, managing director of Amarin Printing and Publishing, said yesterday consumer spending as a whole had not decreased, but people tended to buy smaller pieces of furniture and paid attention mainly to home-decoration items. Chaitawee Larpwattanakij, Bathroom Design's vice president for sales and marketing development, said the economic slowdown affected consumption but that luckily his company's consumers generally had deep pockets. Hence, his company does not expect to see any impact on its sales this year. The economic slowdown has not only affected consumers in the middle to lower levels, but also delayed a number of new housing projects. Chaitawee and Smarnchai predicted the number of new housing project would decrease over the next two years. Panida Cholasin, manager of the Marketing Department at Siam Sanitary Fittings, maintains an optimistic view in regard to housing projects, saying they are still increasing significantly in travel-destination provinces. One challenge is the many Chinese products selling at cheaper prices that are also being showcased at the fair. But Panida said Chinese products on the whole were still at a disadvantages in terms of quality.
Nitida Asawanipont The Nation
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