Exhibition industry on way to recovery

MANILA, Philippines — The World Trade Center Metro Manila (WTCMM) expects the country’s exhibitions industry to recover this year, driven by the strong demand for exhibition space.

“The exhibition industry is well on its way to recovery in 2023,” said WTCMM chairman and CEO Pamela Pascual.

“The year 2022 showed optimistic indicators that point to restored market confidence and renewed vigor among stakeholders to go back to the exhibition floor,” she said.

WTCMM expects its business operations to recover in a robust manner with pre-pandemic business coming back strongly, saying its bookings for the first half of the year have already exceeded its targets.

“We also have once again started to receive inquiries about the timing of the halted expansion project, which indicates that the clamor for more exhibition spaces has remained and that the health pandemic was only a temporary setback. The desire to capture more markets for exhibition continues to be strong,” Pascual said.

WTCMM anticipates more foreign organizers staging their shows in the country in the coming years, emphasizing that with the open international borders, an increase in foreign exhibitor companies is seen to be once again taking up spaces in locally organized shows.

Historically, approximately 30 percent, if not more, of exhibition spaces are taken up by foreign companies in exhibitions held in the country, according to WTCMM.

The WTCMM noted that the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) industry was among the hardest hit by the pandemic.

“All booked trade shows and events for two years were temporarily discontinued and created a huge cloud of uncertainty on when these could be staged in a safe environment,” Pascual said.

As travel restrictions eased, WTCMM said 2022 was a good start for recovery with a critical mass of different types of events staged helped boost the confidence of stakeholders to resume their plans.

Its utilization level increasingly grew from the first half and accelerated towards the second semester last year.

While most health restrictions have now been made optional, the WTCMM continues to be conscious of implementing some restrictions while noting that demand for exhibition space is increasing and already recording high utilization during peak months.

Meanwhile, the exhibition venue acknowledged that the digitalization trend brought by the pandemic is expected to stay to complement on-ground experiences.

The company official emphasized that the exhibition industry is a vehicle to promote domestic and international trade.

“When the Philippines hosts local and international exhibitions, the country benefits from increased tourist and trade arrivals which promote a circular economy through increased consumer spending for accommodations, dining, shopping, tours, etc. Increased trade receipts, on the other hand, benefit employment,”the WTCMM said.

WTCMM is eyeing to realize its plan to increase its space inventory by expanding the exhibition halls to address the strong clamor from the local and foreign markets.

“I believe that increasing the space inventory of this globally-renowned brand shall fortify WTCMM’s long-standing position even more as the only exhibition facility of global standards in the Philippines,” Pascual shared.

Opened in October 1996, WTCMM is a pioneer in the provision of a world-class exhibition venue in the country. The WTCMM is an accredited member of the New York-based World Trade Centers Association (WTCA). It is also a member of the Union des Foires Internationales or UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry.