'Watershed' APEC summit boost for Thai CEI industry

KEY industry figures have hailed APEC as a watershed moment for Thailand's reputation as a successful host of major international events. With the world's spotlight firmly fixed on Thailand, the year-long event, which culminated with October's leaders' and CEO summits, highlighted to the international community that the Kingdom has come of age as a conference, exhibition and incentives (CEI) destination, they said. Mr M Gandhi, managing director of CMP Media (Thailand), said the Kingdom is now in a better position than ever to become the region's CEI hub. "APEC attracted a large number of attendees from the corporate world who attended various activities such as the APEC CEO Summit and APEC Investment Mart in Thailand for the first time," he said. "This ensured that decision-makers experienced the Thai CEI industry and were exposed to its excellent exhibition and convention facilities." "Many people see Thailand as an excellent tourist destination, but when business people come they are not normally exposed to our exhibition and convention facilities." "But the CEOs attended large exhibitions and conventions which exposed them to Thailand's infrastructure. We don't have to sell the industry to those people again." Mr Gandhi predicted APEC would boost the value of the country's CEI sector by 15% this year, from US$175 million. Crucial to the success of APEC was that it went off without incident. "Thailand has passed the acid test and showed it can stage a complicated and sensitive event in the present environment," Mr Gandhi said. "APEC showed us that we should be confident of the ability and professionalism of our CEI industry, which has come of age." Mr Dana Caron, vice-president of Thailand's Trade Exhibition Association, said every single foreign journalist and visitor he spoke to during APEC praised the country's conference and exhibition infrastructure. "You just can't beat that type of advertising," Mr Caron said. "In the past ten years, the country's exhibition space has increased 700% to some 138,000 square metres - we're ready."