Sail-World.com : SIBS Wash Up So Far
The carnival is over and all that remains is to clean up and pull down the displays, and while numbers were certainly down on last year, the BIA NSW is hoping critics and the broader boating community will look beyond attendance figures to the sales and leads generated by SIBS 2008.
Domenic Genua, event organizer, recovering from a late night dedicated to the pull-down of the 41st annual SIBS, said he is proud and pleased with feedback from exhibitors.
'Most exhibitors had realistic expectations for this year’s Boat Show. Despite economic circumstances, we put our best foot forward and showed strength as an industry.'
During the show, Genua was asked to draw the winner of a prize in a competition run by a dealer and noticed that there were a lot of entries in the barrel.
'Now I don’t know if they were a lot of big boats sold, or a lot of smaller boats, or a mix of boats, accessories and other things, but he seemed to have a lot of names in that container, which I took as a good sign.
'It's a great barometer of interest in his products and hopefully for him, excellent return on investment.'
Genua urged people not to use visitation as a guide to the health of the industry, but to consider sales and feedback from exhibitors, which he said will be available in the next day or so as figures are calculated.
Whilst the visitors did not return in the numbers of past years, those who did showed that recreational boating remained high on the list of activities that families prefer for their leisure pastime.
SIBS 2008 welcomed 20,000 visitors more than any other show in Australia this year and according to exhibitors, expenditure was 'above expectations'. A total of 70,767 visitors attended the event over the six days with some varied results across the segments.
'The show has a large cross section of market segments participating,' continued Genua. 'It is difficult to say that one was up and one was down, as the fortunes within the segments varied. Some of the big boat guys did very well, others not so well. This was the same across all segments.'
The show plays an important part of the recreational marine industry with reported sales showing that it can directly be attributed to 25% of the industries turnover for the year.
 | Roy Privett, GM of BIA NSW. - .. |
Roy Privett, BIA NSW General Manager said: 'What is positive is that the decision by the BIA Board to substantially increase marketing expenditure for this years show paid off. The decrease in attendance over last year was kept to a minimum and the added television exposure ensured that we maintained the recreational boating lifestyle message with those that did not have the opportunity to visit.'
Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Total
2007 vistors 8,695 11,435 22,075 23,962 8,707 7,084 81,957
2008 visitors 7,249 10,613 18,753 20,786 7,901 5,465 70,767
Difference -1,446 -822 -3,322 -3,176 -806 -1,619 -11,191
% -16.6 -7.2 -15.0 -13.3 -9.3 -22.9 -13.7
Regarding the comments that given the challenging economic times, the BIA NSW should give exhibitors a break and lower prices, Genua is adamant: 'It won’t happen'.
'We have a $4m overhead for this show, including million dollar hall hire. It’s a million and a half to build marina. Exhibitors know before they arrive that these are the costs. They need to make the commercial decisions. I cannot control the costs of the show.'
He continues: 'It’s a true cost. We are not running this to make a killing out of the exhibitors. We had 278 exhibitors this year and most of them are members, if not here then in other states. We have over 600 members. The balance who don’t exhibit wouldn’t appreciate funding those who do exhibit.'
The Sydney International Boat Show will again run in 2009 from 30 July to 4 August.
More stats and figures later today at www.marinebusinessnews.com
by Jeni Bone
11:36 PM Tue 5 Aug 2008 GMT
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