The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) has kicked off a new incubation programme that will help elevate promising Thai PEOs to global standards through mergers of operations or events with international peers looking to expand into Asia.
Revealing the programme details to TTGmice, TCEB’s senior vice president – business, Nichapa Yoswee, said TCEB has shortlisted a number of local PEOs and, based on their event specialisation, matched them with some of the 12 industry sectors that are key to Thailand’s new generation 4.0 economic policy. The 12 sectors include Digital, Robotics and Automation, and Aviation and Logistics.
Furthermore, TCEB has also matched the world’s top three trade exhibitions for each of the 12 sectors.
This three-way matching process allows TCEB to help local PEOs identify their potential growth track – international trade exhibitions they could aspire towards and/or join forces with for expansion.
Coming up in August, TCEB will begin a training programme for shortlisted PEOs, where they will learn what preparations are needed should a merger and acquisition with a global peer be on the cards. At the end of the training programme, shortlisted PEOs will also need to identify at least five areas they think they need to improve in order to grow.
Nichapa said: “We – as well as the Thai Exhibition Association – will play the role of a consultant to Thai PEOs. We will show them the trends in the industry (their events serve), and tell them what would happen should they fail to raise their events to global standards. Their events will survive for now, but they will not be sustainable in the long run. We will show them how they can benefit from growing and becoming international players.”
To guide them along the way, TCEB has established milestones that shortlisted PEOs must attain, and will provide incentives to do more at every stage.
“This is additional work for my exhibitions team, but this is important work, good work and the only way to help local PEOs fast-track to global standards,” remarked Nichapa.
“The end goal is survival and the opportunity to make more money. If local PEOs resist globalisation, they need to know that they may not survive,” she said.
TCEB’s desire for local PEO growth is also to support the growing number of new international exhibitions it has been able to bag in recent times.
“Now that TCEB is bringing in so many new international exhibitions, we hope to see our local players getting a fair share of the investment. There is no point (in TCEB working so hard only) for international organisers to benefit from their expansion into Asia,” she said.
Nichapa expects the whole process, from shortlisting promising local PEOs and eventually creating a successful match with international peers, to take one to two years.
She believes that Thailand has “several very good local PEOs that are ready for this”.
