Hospitality industry With help from its first overall corporate sponsor, City Bank, the annual Hawaii Lodging, Hospitality & Foodservice Expo next month will be the biggest yet, with more than 320 companies showing their goods and services in more than 500 booths, organizers say.
expo bigger
than ever
An expanded venue will allow
wait-listed companies to participateBy Russ Lynch
Star-BulletinThe two-day show July 11-12 at the Neal Blaisdell Center will be free to business representatives who are potential buyers of the goods and services on display, but not open to their guests, spouses or children and not to the general public, organizers said.
City Bank is paying for 16,000 full-color postcards for exhibitors to use to invite potential customers, said Ken Kanter, exposition director for Douglas Trade Shows, which produces the expo. Last year, without that particular push, nearly 4,500 business representatives, most of them buyers, were attracted to the Expo.
The bank is also helping with advertising in trade publications, as well as with improvements in the show itself, sponsoring some of the administrative activities as well as providing some of the giveaways, such as vacation packages, that will be handed out as promotions.
The Expo benefits the Hawaii Hotel Association and the Hawaii Restaurant Association and is aimed at the hospitality industry in all its shapes and sizes, not just hotels and restaurants but hospitals, prisons, schools and other users of services the exhibitors provide.
The show became so big this year that instead of remaining confined to the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall as it used to be, it will spread through the Blaisdell Arena as well, Kanter said. Last year, the show jammed the Exhibition Hall with a sell-out 400 booths.
Adding the arena space will let in many would-be exhibitors who have been wait-listed for several years, Kanter said.
Among the new developments is a higher participation by technology companies.
"There is a spike in technology this year," he said. "There are 10 companies we've never seen before, promoting high-speed Internet access, wireless technology, various software products and so on."
Also new this year is a space of about 2,000 square feet set aside for the Hawaii Association of Artists to hold an art show to be judged by a jury. The idea is to give local artists a chance to show their creativity to hotel and restaurant managers, interior designers and others.
"Douglas Trade Shows feels that art is an integral part of hospitality ambiance," Kanter said.
Otherwise, there will be a vast array of food and drink, plus everything from water filters to dry cleaning equipment, furnishings and fittings.
City Bank, which has sponsored the Hawaii Food Manufacturers Association Pavilion at the Expo for some years, finds it "a unique and attractive venue to promote business," and decided to become the show's first corporate sponsor this year, said Lou Chun, the bank's business banking officer.
The Expo's audience are representatives of the businesses that run Hawaii's 70,000 hotel rooms and resort condominium units, 2,500 food-service establishments and other hospitality businesses, such as night clubs, the military, supermarkets, senior centers, convenience stores, shopping centers, commercial buildings and architecture firms.
The Hotel Association and the Restaurant Association had their own separate shows for many years but Douglas Trade Shows put together the first combined show in 1995, producing the show itself as the official show of the associations, which get some of the revenues.
For information about becoming an exhibitor or attending the show, contact Douglas Trade Shows at (800) 525-5275 or at 254-1773, e-mail kanter@lava.net or visit www.douglastradeshows.com.