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| Supawan Teerarat (www.ttrweekly.com) |
Vice President-Strategic and Business Development
Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau
IT&CMA and CTW Asia-Pacific 2013 Official Press Conference
1 October 2013 at 11:15 - 12:15 hrs.
Bangkok Convention Centre at Central World
Good morning,
On behalf of the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau or TCEB, I’m honored to welcome all of you here for the media briefing. I’m especially pleased to see such strong media interest in this event, not just locally, but from across the region and beyond. Thank you all for being here today.
As some of you may know, this year marks Thailand’s 12th year in hosting this premier double-bill regional event, and we thank IT&CMA, CTW and all in the industry for placing your trust and confidence in Thailand. We are of course especially indebted to Darren Ng of TTG Asia Media.
Your vision and commitment has been instrumental in driving the event’s continuous year-on-year growth, and in firmly establishing IT&CMA and CTW as the flagship regional event for the business travel and meetings industry.
For this double-bill event, TCEB has been an active main supporter of this event every year. TCEB’s partnership with this event has always been based on our firm conviction both in the value and strategic potential of IT&CMA and CTW as an industry springboard for the Asia-Pacific market.
Let me turn now to Thailand’s MICE industry. The MICE industry has played an important role in the Thai economy, and this year we are on track to welcome some 940,000 MICE visitors, generating annual revenues of about 80 billion baht, equivalent to 2.57 billion US dollars. In 2014, we expect Thailand’s MICE sector to continue its growth trend, with approximately 987,000 visitors, up by 5 per cent. At the same time, we foresee revenue growth of 10% to 96.9 billion baht, or 3.09 billion US dollars.
So you can really see from these figures that we are entering an exciting and vibrant period of growth and development as we approach economic integration of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations under ASEAN Economic Community or AEC, and Thailand’s meetings and travel sectors are already gearing up to be ready to face both the challenges and opportunities presented by a single market of over 580 million people.
In order to raise awareness of the diversity of choice and opportunities that Thailand has to offer, TCEB has launched a new global branding campaign. And I would like to take this opportunity to introduce this initiative to you today. It’s called the ‘Thailand CONNECT: Your Global Business Events Connection’. The campaign targets buyers from around the world, focusing on Thailand’s winning combination of qualities: a diversity of destinations, incomparable business opportunities, and high quality MICE professionals.
With recent massive investments in our infrastructure, connectivity and facilities, a perfect blend of legendary hospitality and service excellence, and a strategic location at the heart of ASEAN, Thailand is already emerging as Asia’s premier MICE destination.
And I’m very pleased to tell you that TCEB has chosen this event to launch our latest global branding campaign, Thailand CONNECT, which we’ll be making the official announcement at a press conference on 2 October, at 10:30 a.m.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me close by, once again, thank you Darren and TTG Asia Media, and all our partners in the government and private sectors and especially of course, the media, for your incredible support and long-term commitment to support IT&CMA and CTW Asia-Pacific held in our beautiful Kingdom of Thailand. TCEB and all our government and industry partners are committed to the success of this event, not only for now, but also in the years to come.
Thank you all for your attention.
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