First Phuket Boat Show is a winner

by Grenville Fordham on 17 Dec 2003 Hailed by marine industry exhibitors as a resounding success, Phuket’s first international boat show – PIMEX 2003 – closed on Wednesday, after four days in which many exhibitors reported excellent sales, others solid enquiries and still more found new distributors in Thailand.

On the first day of the show, Sunday 7 December, almost 1,000 visitors came to see more than 80 exhibitors representing around 120 companies. ‘What was really encouraging,’ said Grenville Fordham, managing director of organizers Image Asia Events, ‘was that more than half that number was serious trade visitors.’

‘This is has been a very successful show for us, equal to best I’ve ever been to,’ said Jan Jacobs, general manager of yacht brokers and charterers Thai Marine Leisure, who reported two confirmed yacht sales and many excellent contacts made. Jacobs’s company has exhibited at boat shows all over the world.

Visitors to PIMEX included top representatives from the marine industry Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, including Francis Lee, president of Raffles Marina in Singapore and Y P Loke, head of the Aseanarean Marine Association.
By the end of the four-day show visitors totalled 2,335, including 773 trade visitors, many whom stayed for the full four days. In addition, there were 200 representatives of exhibiting companies networking the show. ‘The total number of visitors would certainly have been higher,’ reported Image Asia director Andy Dowden, ‘but un-seasonal grey skies and persistent rain kept tourists and the general public away on the last day, when entrance to the show was free to all.’

Good sales and excellent contacts made for a jubilant group of exhibitors at the show’s closing party on Wednesday night, where Steve Fields of the Australian company Hobie Cat reported, ‘On the first day we signed a one million baht contract for sea kayaks, and have at least two more enquiries that we are confident will turn into substantial orders within a few days. As for our exhibits, we’ve sold them all and have nothing to take home. We want exactly the same booth location at next year’s show, but with extra space.’

‘More than 30 of this year’s exhibitors have confirmed that they will be back next year for PIMEX 2004,’ said Fordham, who also reported that Image Asia Events has already held discussions with a Pattaya marina on the prospect of staging a boat show in Pattaya next year.

‘The intention is not to replace or upstage the Phuket show,’ said Fordham. ‘We see it as complementary, with a different target visitor market and a different mix of exhibitors. We should strike while the iron is hot, while the interest and enthusiasm for boating in Thailand is at an all-time high.’

Summing up the buoyant feeling that came out of this first-time event, Barry Moore of Sunrunner Cruises (Australia) said, ‘Thailand led into the Asian recession and then led out again. PIMEX has shown that Thailand, and Phuket in particular, can also lead the boating industry out of its cruise to nowhere’.

For more information please contact Grenville Fordham, email gren@image-asia.com