“The country’s leisure yachting companies could face yet another spherical of ‘too many boat shows’ as soon as the Covid disruptor has passed into relative insignificance.”
It’s onerous to think about something as simple as a ship show causing infinite controversy – but that has been the case nearly since Thailand’s first show, Phuket International Marine Expo (PIMEX), held in 2003 on the Phuket Boat Lagoon (PBL).
The brainchild of Image Asia MD, Grenville Fordham, and his enterprise associate Andy Dowden, the concept of a ship show in Phuket initially attracted doubters in droves… “They’ve obtained no experience” and “It can be dangerous giving them deposits” were simply two of the anti-show cries heard from industry naysayers.
But built on the rising dissatisfaction expressed by returning Boat Asia (Singapore) exhibitors, the concept gathered momentum and supporters. Small by international requirements and exclusively underneath canvas onshore, with not a great many boats in the water, Thailand’s first-ever boat show was, nonetheless, hailed as a success by domestic and worldwide exhibitors.
The timing was essential; the next 12 months, industry efforts to reduce taxation on imported boats had been wildly successful; the 200+ p.c levies previously applied had been lowered to simply 7% VAT, heralding the real starting of the exponential development of Thailand’s (and significantly Phuket’s) leisure yachting industry – and on the same time making certain that boat reveals in Phuket had strong future potential.
Thus, PIMEX ran easily at PBL, beneath the Image Asia banner, in December every year till 2006 with an unchanged format, and with progressively rising numbers, selection and quality of exhibitors. Then, in 2007, ownership of the present handed to Andy Dowden’s Andaman Marine Consultants (AMC) and it relocated to Royal Phuket Marina (RPM), now not underneath canvas.
Visitor numbers, however, remained pretty static at somewhere between three,000 and four,000, because it turned clear that attracting large numbers of overseas guests to a present in Phuket was, maybe, a challenge too far. It would show to be a recurring theme.
Nevertheless, following worldwide media publicity of PIMEX 2007, the increasing Informa Yacht Group (IYG) acquired ownership of the present, retaining AMC to run issues on the bottom. PIMEX 2008 went forward, nonetheless in December and nonetheless at RPM.
Under the IYG umbrella, nice new issues by means of advertising have been promised – with consequential improvements in amount and quality of tourists – but with no substantial growth in either, albeit with a glossier, extra professional, presentation.
Around this time, trade voices clamouring for different dates reached fever pitch and a change from December to January was agreed. With no show in 2009, PIMEX 2010 and 2011 had been staged in January with a claimed 25 percent enhance in exhibitors, but nonetheless discovering it difficult to rise above the customary three,000 to four,000 guests.
Responding to opposite exhibitor claims that January was not, after all, the most effective time to run the present, the subsequent four years noticed PIMEX swing backwards and forwards between January and March, the organisers doing their finest to please everybody.
Then, all of a sudden in or round 2015, Informa determined to exit the boat show business. PIMEX ownership reverted to AMC and PIMEX 2016 went forward as ordinary in January at RPM, but beneath the looming shadow of a brand new – and aggressive – present, the next month.
The inaugural Thailand Yacht Show (TYS), held in February 2016 at Phuket’s Ao Po Grand Marina, was the brainchild of former IYG mover and shaker Andy Treadwell and appeared set to drive PIMEX out of business. For the native trade, nonetheless, this was an unwelcome transfer. It meant both doubling their annual Phuket boat show spend or making a troublesome alternative between a recognized entity and the newer, evidently glossier, various.
The TYS ‘claim to fame’ was huge authorities assist and a key element of its marketing platform focused on the temptingly lucrative superyacht sector.
For the first time, the strident trade call, “Does Thailand want one other boat show?” resonated around Phuket’s marinas. The prevailing opinion was resoundingly that Phuket, actually, didn’t want two boat reveals. But it had them.
PIMEX 2017 went forward at RPM in January and was adopted again, this time at a extra first rate interval, by the second TYS in December. Come January 2018, we discover Andy Dowden’s AMC teaming up with Olivier and Gael Burlot, organisers of the Singapore Rendezvous, to present the all-new Phuket Rendezvous 2018 at RPM, which was like its predecessor, PIMEX, however with a touch extra pizzazz.
Not to be outdone, TYS 2018 went back to its authentic killer timing, carefully following the Rendezvous in February, once more at Ao Po Grand Marina.
Something clearly had to give. Phuket now had three separate entities organising two different boat reveals three years in a row, stretching each the budgets and the endurance of Phuket’s main yacht brokers, amongst others. And something was done.
An unlikely partnership between Andy Treadwell and the Burlot brothers – who had been doing battle in Singapore with the former’s Singapore Yacht Show and the latter’s Singapore Rendezvous – conceived the Thailand Yacht Show & Rendezvous 2019, held at RPM. This dropped at an end the brokers’ nightmare of two competing boat shows on this small holiday island, whereas virtually by the way bringing to an end Thailand’s authentic boat show, PIMEX.
The harmony, however, was quick lived. The following 12 months noticed Andy Treadwell, by way of his new organising company Verventia, win the battle of the boat reveals and stage, without visible companions, the TYS 2020 at RPM. Everyone breathed an enormous sigh of reduction that there was, once again, only one Phuket boat show in the island’s most suitable venue.
Then Covid-19 changed every thing. TYS 2021 was, unsurprisingly, cancelled together with Verventia’s extra mature Singapore Yacht Show. Uncertainty reigned and a ship present void appeared, a minimum of within the understanding of the latest entrant in Phuket’s boat present battles.
Believing (based – we perceive – on discussions with numerous involved parties) that TYS was not going to happen once more, in mid-2021 David Hayes, CEO of event organisers JAND Group, launched the inaugural Thailand International Boat Show (TIBS), to be held in January 2022 at RPM. Unfortunately for JAND, a mix of Covid uncertainty and the renewed spectre of two Phuket boat shows resulted within the postponement of TIBS until January 2023.
In โซล่าเซลล์ราคาถูกคุณภาพดี , TYS has announced a new partnership with Ocean Marina to run the Thailand Yacht Show – Pattaya in April 2022 and has plans to run the Phuket model of TYS during 2022 on a date and at a venue but to be confirmed.
Taking a step again, through the virtually 20 years of boat shows, Phuket has not had things all its personal method. Pattaya’s Ocean Marina staged its personal boat present – Ocean Marina Pattaya Boat Show (OMPBS) for eight years from 2012 to 2019, attracting for probably the most part locally based mostly exhibitors, with some from Phuket and different parts of Thailand adding to the combo. The final OMPBS was held pre-Covid in November 2019.
Other tentative forays into Thailand’s troublesome boat present enterprise have included Singapore’s Boat Asia, which staged a one-off ‘Boat Thai’ at a major Bangkok exhibition centre. More lately, a show-within-a-show was staged – ‘Join Boat Platform’ – at Bangkok’s Motor Expo in 2020 and 2021. This new event attracted a sprinkling of trailer boats, water toys and a few of the greater boat brokers, all hoping to sort out efficiently the huge, so far untapped, potential of the Thai marketplace for leisure boating.
Where to from here? It would take a much more accurate and sturdy crystal ball than this writer’s to predict Thailand’s boat present future. But if history is something to go by, it appears that the country’s leisure yachting businesses might face yet another spherical of ‘too many boat shows’ once the Covid disruptor has passed into relative insignificance. The solely consistent and predictable factor of each Phuket boat present previous, and possibly future, is that tough to budge visitor depend. Hail to she or he who can get 10,000 quality visitors by way of the gate!
Author:
Paul Poole is the founder, managing director and chairman of Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd., an impartial marketing consultancy based mostly in Bangkok, Thailand. The company specialises in business sponsorship and partnership advertising, working with both rights holders and types. Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd. has packaged, sold, and managed sponsorship and partnership alternatives for a quantity of of Southeast Asia’s leading yachting occasions, together with almost the entire shows named in this story..