BANGKOK, THAILAND — The organizers of FIAAP, VICTAM & GRAPAS Asia 2014, which was held April 8-10 in Bangkok, Thailand at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre (BITEC), have announced that both shows had strong exhibition representation and solid visitor traffic.

There were in all 219 exhibitors, compared 166 in 2012, and they came from 29 different countries. The net exhibition floor area was almost 16% larger than the 2012 edition. The show space/area was fully booked, and there were even companies on the list waiting for a possibility to exhibit.

Over the three days of the exhibition there were 6,134 visitors to the shows, a slight decrease on the 6,198 visitors that attended the 2012 event. Twenty-eight percent were from outside Thailand. The organizers noted this decline was not surprising as there was civil unrest in Thailand and especially Bangkok, although this unrest was in small areas which were well away from BITEC, the hotels and the business areas. The demonstrations had received negative news coverage all over the world and especially in Asia. Both Indonesia and India held general elections during the event, and the organizers noted they understood that potential visitors decided not to fly owing to the unfortunate disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines plane. The organizers said that all of these had an adverse effect on the number of visitors to the event and especially foreigners and if none of these had happened then the number of visitors to the shows and conferences would have certainly be higher.

Almost 30% of the visitors to the exhibitions were of director level. Many had travelled from all over South & South East Asia. The event had visitors from 63 countries. The survey also indicated that almost 92% of the visitors intend to visit the shows again in 2016.

The majority of the visitors, as you would expect, came from the animal feed, aquafeed and dry petfood production sectors. However there was a marked increase in the number of visitors from rice and flour millers, grain processors, noodle, breakfast cereal and snack producers, this was also reflected in the exhibition profile.

The next FIAAP, VICTAM & GRAPAS event in Asia will be in Spring 2016, however an even larger event organized by Victam will take place in Cologne, Germany in 2015. This is FIAAP, VICTAM & GRAPAS INTERNATIONAL 2015, and it will be held at the KoelnMesse in Cologne, Germany from June 9-11, 2015.