South of the Border: Concerns Among Successes

Mexico’s consumer show industry is going great guns – and the tradeshow side of the business, despite some reservations, is doing pretty well, too, particularly in Mexico City.

The capital, which until fairly recently lacked enough exhibition space, has emerged as the dominant tradeshow city thanks to such world-class venues as Expo Bancomer Santa Fe, World Trade Center Intl. Exhibition & Convention Center and Centro Banamex Exhibition & Convention Center.

Mexican tradeshows are growing and proliferating, said Steve Ianuzzi, managing member of Grupo MFV Expositions, which stages shows in all the country’s big cities. Just as in the United States, he noted, shows in some sectors are doing particularly well – packaging and food, for instance – and others are struggling – such as furniture.

Despite the inconsistency from sector to sector, Paul St. Amour, E.J. Krause & Associates’ vice president for Latin America, said most business-to-business shows were doing well.

“We do 12 shows in all industries,” he said, “so it’s a mini-barometer for the industry as a whole. We’re not seeing a fall-off in attendance, like tech shows once did. Overall, we’re not having that issue in Mexico yet, because the economy’s doing well here.”

However, St. Amour added, there are danger signals, and Mexican tradeshow organizers are concerned about the future. Although the Mexican economy is doing well, they’re worried about the ultimate impact on them if weakness in the U.S. economy continues.

That’s not all. One challenge Mexican show organizers have in common with their counterparts in the U.S. is price pressure.

“Mexico is an expensive place to do business, although people don’t think it is,” St. Amour said. “They wonder why a so-called Third-World country is so expensive. It’s a challenge to control prices.”

First, he said, there is the preferred way of building a booth. Pipe and drape are out of the question. Most booths are made with hardwall, which is more costly.

Marketing can be expensive too: Printing costs are high, there is no such thing as bulk postage rates and all facilities are privately owned, meaning they don’t have any agreements with destination management organizations that provide help.

Also, there is not a great tradition of traveling from city to city to attend shows, so there is little value in marketing a destination the way U.S. show managers might take advantage of, for instance, Las Vegas or Orlando.

Finally, observers said, the Mexican tradeshow industry, outside of a few large cities, still has some maturing to do.

Patricia Farias Barlow, president and CEO of Farias Global Expos/Messe Dusseldorf AV Mexico, compared her country’s industry with a teenager at the point where he or she is either going to grow up to be a decent, hard-working adult who contributes to society or one who will get lost along the way.

“This is a very challenging era with a great deal of work to be done by all of us in this industry,” Farias Barlow said.

The Mexican industry must concentrate on training and professionalizing itself over the next few years if it is to become an important component in the marketing mix, she added.

“If we do not,” Farias Barlow said, “we stand to lose a lot of the 30 years we have invested in getting the industry to where it is with the respect it has.”

The cities that have strong tradeshow infrastructures, according to Farias Barlow, are Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Other cities have opened convention centers, but most of the larger horizontal tradeshows are held in Mexico City because that’s where most of the country’s largest companies – and their decision makers – are located, she added.

“In Mexico, the show needs to come to the market, not the market to the show,” Farias Barlow said. “This is why Mexico City is so predominant for major shows.”

St. Amour agreed, but pointed out that it is only in the past dozen or so years, since some new venues were built there, that Mexico City has catapulted past Guadalajara as the country’s No. 1 tradeshow destination.

There are second-tier cities also, each with their own niche.

Poliforum Leon is the biggest venue in Mexico and considered a world-class center with four exhibition halls, totaling 45,900 square meters (493,802 square feet).

“Leon is the center for textile and shoe manufacturing,” St. Amour said, “so it holds international shows in those industries twice a year. But the facility is not used continually.”

Cancun, Puebla and Veracruz host shows. Acapulco’s Expo at Mundo Imperial with 22,700 sq. m. (244,000 sq. ft.) opens next month.

“There’s been lots of investment in new facilities in secondary and tertiary Mexican markets,” St. Amour said. “That could be problematic because they won’t attract national or international events. So, in the next few years, there will be efforts to fill them.”