47 trade shows will resume in Thailand this year under
new guidelines, the latest sign of progress in the
fight against Covid-19, and the easing of lockdown restrictions imposed by the
government.
The third phase easing of lockdown measure has been announced,
also effective from 1st June 2020 allowing more economic and social
activities to operate but must remain under the health and public safety rules
and regulations.
This includes the reopening of convention and exhibition centers
for business but they must close by 21.00 hours and the space used must not
exceed 20,000 sqm. The government, in addition, recently allowed the business to
conduct the meeting, seminar, and conference with a total of 50-200 participants.
The move is supported by Thailand’s Ministry
of Health, which has long recognized the importance of the exhibitions to the
economy, actively encouraging the reopening of the exhibition in June 2020.
In terms of the inbound flight, the government will expect another phase of ease of lockdown to resume operating
the international flight from July 1st, 2020
onward.
For the government’s ease of restarting the exhibition business,
TCEB recently working with its partners including the Thailand Incentive and
Convention Association (TICA), Thai Exhibition
Association (TEA), Event Management
Association (EMA) and Thai Hotels
Association (THA). TCEB
have been able to mitigate the social and economic
impact of Covid-19 with safety and
measure guidelines, “Exhibitions New Norm SOP” (Exhibition New Norm Standard
Operation Procedures). The guidelines will build confidence from
authorities in charge of disease control and public health that the exhibition is
not a source of spreading the infection under the new normal measures
collaborated by all exhibition’s stakeholders.
The guideline covers 9 key measures on hygiene and public
safety established by the Thai Exhibition Association (TEA) must be strictly
adhered to as follows:
•
Screening measures
before entering the building
•
Screening measures
before entering the events
•
Measures for
exhibitors and visitors during the event
•
Measure for personnel
during set-up and tear-down
•
Hygiene measures
inside the buildings
•
Meetings and seminar
activities during the event
•
Emergency plan in
case of encountering with people at risk of infection
•
Communication
•
Health records
To ease the business difficulty of crowd control and safety management
during the exhibition and trade show in Thailand, TCEB recently developed and
promoted the “Hybrid Exhibition” by endorsing and encouraging exhibition
businesses to migrate the innovation and technology to efficiently organize the
tradeshow during the COVID-19 pandemic. The migration of technology will
combine the penetration into tools such as a 360-degree virtual
tour, live streams, the innovative use of social media, and a platform for
webinars as well as digital one-to-one engagement for the events.
On 1st June 2020, the
exhibition venues in Thailand will be allowed to reopen and resume operating and it is expected to launch the 1st
local B2C show in Thailand in June.
Nichapa Yoswee, SVP Business of TCEB revealed
that “TCEB will promote this new normal guideline to the whole exhibition
business in the exhibition industry including exhibition stakeholder,
exhibition professionals, service providers to follow, hence reduce the risk of
spreading COVID-19.”
“In order to return business back, TCEB by Exhibition Department will lend
the extra support for the new norm of an exhibition organized immediately in this
fiscal year. We are fully
confident that the 47 events resuming in 2020, including Thailand Health & Fitness
Expo, Asian Paper & Tissue World Bangkok 2020, Food & Hotel Thailand,
Concrete Asia 2020, INTERMAT ASEAN 2020, INTERMACH2020, Subcon Thailand 2020
and Cosmoprof CBE ASEAN Bangkok will be successful. And with these necessary
operational adjustments, we invite you to share in our confidence.”
