Hotel Design Shows Hot

Habitat Expo in Mexico looks to United States to fill American pavilion

By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 3/21/2005

If you've sworn off cookie-cutter airport hotels in favor of places with a bit more character, you're not alone.

Hospitality design — particularly boutique hotel design — is hot, giving rise to more tradeshows in the United States and abroad, where fabricators of furniture, fixtures and textiles can display their wares to interior decorators and architects that specialize in hotel properties.

Now, longtime market leader VNU Expositions is seeing some competition creep into its space from south of the border.

VNU has a wealth of research indicating that hotel-room demand, revenue, refurbishment and profits are all on the rise. According to Lodging Econometrics, for instance, 688 hotels with 68,599 rooms should begin construction this year in the United States.

During the economic downturn, trends toward domestic travel and hotel renovation contributed to the success of VNU's 12-year-old Hospitality Design Conference & Expo, held each May at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas.

The show has grown steadily, from 916 exhibitors, 206,720 net square feet and 7,587 professional attendees in 2002; to 980 exhibitors, 250,000 net sq. ft. and 14,000 attendees last year. Organizers project further growth at this year's May 4–7 show.

But VNU isn't the only one benefiting from the vitality of hospitality design. In 2000, Tradex Expositions Intl. launched Habitat Expo in Mexico City, and grew it to 182 exhibitors, 90,000 sq. ft. and 10,000 attendees last year.

Organizers predict as many as 15,000 attendees this May 19–21, due to the city's dense population and the event's status as the biggest hospitality show in Mexico, said Gabrielle Sewell, of independent show management firm DC Expositions.

These are just two of the benefits Sewell uses as selling points to get U.S. companies to exhibit in Habitat Expo's first American Pavilion. Touting the potential of the Mexican market, Tradex has hired DC Expositions to recruit U.S. manufacturers for shows in its real estate, adventure tourism and hobby divisions, as well as hospitality design.

Former HD Expo manager Luellen Hoffman, now with DC Expositions, is mentoring Sewell, who said Hoffman will take a more hands-on approach to Habitat Expo next year.

According to Sewell's research, $500 million in hotel renovation is currently underway in Mexico. "It's no longer that Mexico will be a great place to do business," she said. "It is today."

DC also points out low exhibiting costs — due to the absence of drayage fees and labor unions — as an advantage to exhibiting in Mexico. "That alone can save a company thousands of dollars over exhibiting in certain cities, like New York, Chicago and Las Vegas," said DC Expositions in a recent statement.

Yet Sewell insisted her work in the U.S. market is in no way a challenge to VNU, which has been supportive of Tradex's Habitat Expo (each company has a booth in the other's show).

Sewell said the American pavilion, with about half a dozen exhibitors so far, will "never take the place of a U.S. show," because Mexico captures only about 10 to 15 percent of the total market share. "It's about 90 times bigger than that here in the states. There's not an exhibitor in the U.S. that would stop exhibiting at HD Expo to go down to Mexico," she noted.

For VNU's part, HD Group Show Director Lee Arevian said, "Any competition is not particularly appreciated, but there's room on the dance floor for all of us. The stuff (Habitat Expo does) will help educate a market, which in turn helps our show."

There is no Mexican pavilion at HD Expo, but a specialty spin-off of that show — HD Boutique, each September in Miami Beach, Fla. — does cater to the Latin American boutique market.

Here too, Tradex seems to have caught on, partnering with the Mexico Boutique Hotel Assn. to produce an industry forum and luncheon at Habitat Expo.

Arevian said only about 20 percent of HD Boutique's attendees are from Latin America and the Caribbean, and only a small percentage of those are from Mexico. About 85 percent of exhibitors are from the United States.

Rather, he's focused on China, with Hospitality Design Asia Exhibition & Conference set to launch June 23–24 at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.

VNU expects 100 to 120 exhibitors occupying 20,000 net sq. ft. and attracting about 1,000 buyers at the inaugural show.