Chilean Flair: Santiago Lures Overseas Shows

By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 10/10/2005

Chile is a distinctive country with many eccentricities. Its national drink is Pisco, a brandy often mixed to form the Piscola or Pisco Sour, and Chileans can't get enough of the Completo, a hot dog topped with guacamole, tomatoes and mayonnaise. The romantic spirit of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda floods central Chile, which boasts three of his former homes-turned-museums. And don't forget about the Andes, Easter Island and Patagonia.

With the country's one-of-a-kind cultural offerings and Santiago's handful of exhibition facilities, the Chile Convention Bureau and Santiago Convention Bureau have begun marketing the capital city as a premier location for international tradeshows and meetings.

"(Santiago) has a little bit of everything," said Helen Fell, promotions manager for the SCB. "We have ski slopes, beaches and wineries (less than two hours) out of Santiago."

Plus, added Christa March, show manager for Waldwick, N.J.-based show organizer Kallman Worldwide, "Santiago, for Latin American standards, is a modern city with plenty of business-making and accommodations that are standard for an American citizen." For the last 12 years, Kallman has managed the U.S. pavilion at the annual FIDAE Intl. Air and Space Trade Fair, and will manage a U.S. pavilion at the next three editions of the biennial mining show, ExpoMin. Both shows are held in Santiago.

The 2004 signing of the United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement has given the two Chilean bureaus a boost in attracting international shows and luring additional global participants to existing Santiago shows, noted March. "The stable economy attracts U.S. companies to partner with Chile," she said. "And the country provides a sound platform to gather with professionals attending tradeshows from other Latin American countries."

Santiago, centrally located within the narrow, vertical country, currently has 8,500 hotel rooms and several tradeshow facilities that attract annual shows with attendance in the thousands.

The 3-year-old Santiago Convention Center, or Espacio Riesco, will host 11 tradeshows this year in its 53,820 square feet of exhibit space. However, the family-run center is set to expand by 215,278 sq. ft. of exhibit space by next April, in time for the next ExpoMin and its 43,000 visitors May 23–25.

Plus, according to Daniel Amigo, SCC sales and marketing manager, the venue's management team is preparing to launch a show management arm. SCC management is hoping to "introduce new properties to the market," Amigo said, possibly including what he labeled a "strategic alliance" with Reed Exhibitions.

Reed spokeswoman Beth Blake confirmed that the firm is holding "preliminary meetings with the Santiago Convention Center."

Reed currently doesn't manage any Santiago-based shows, however it organizes four shows in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In the meantime, Chile's developing casino industry is spawning shows. The annual Chile Casinos launched in May at the SCC, Amigo said, because of 17 new Chilean casinos that the government is expected to approve in the near future.

"This will be a new opportunity to make this area in Chile grow," Amigo said.

The SCC also recently attracted a sought-after show that rotates around the globe: the triennial FIGO World Congress of Gynecology & Obstetrics. The show, organized by the London-based Intl. Federation of Gynecology & Obstetrics, in 2003 drew approximately 12,000 visitors to the SCC.

Rounding out Santiago's conventional tradeshow venues are the Diego Portales Convention Center, Sheraton Santiago Hotel & Convention Center and Casa Piedra Convention Hall.

Several non-traditional Santiago venues also house tradeshows. Catholic University's Centro de Extension offers 17 halls with a capacity for 3,500 people, according to the SCB. Another venue, Centro Cultural Estacion Mapocho, is located in a former railroad station and spans 172,223 sq. ft. with a 14,000-person capacity. The Centro is used for art exhibitions along with tradeshows.

The Arturo Merino Benitez Intl. Airport's six pavilions and convention center will host the next FIDAE the last week of March 2006, and the CCB expects the show to attract 270,000 visitors.

FIDAE and ExpoMin 2006 are certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Trade Fair Certification Program, which endorses show organizers, authorizes an official U.S. pavilion, obtains U.S. embassy participation for the show and provides the organizer with promotional support in the United States.

Because of changes to the type of exhibiting firms FIDAE will allow, next year will be the first time in 15 years that the show has received the U.S. program's approval, said Sean McAlister, a senior international trade specialist for the Office of Global Trade Programs. The program's mandate is to approve shows of more than 51 percent commercial content. In recent years, FIDAE was dominated by military sales, McAlister said.

Nevertheless, Kallman has run a U.S. pavilion at the show for some time without the department's official recognition.

But 2006 will be different for FIDAE and the number of U.S. companies visiting Santiago, McAlister said. This will help "open up opportunities," because of the addition of dozens of U.S. companies. "We look at Chile as an up-and-coming market," he said.