Demand for S'pore conventions is up. Malaysia?

As I often ranted, you build projects when you anticipate Demand and where decent return-on-investment is expected.
Otherwise, you are wasting your cotton-freaking time and worse, wasting public money.

But luckily for Malaysia, *charity group Naza is building a new convention centre for the government FOR FREE. Yay!!!

See what The Other Mr Clean, Tok Pa, said:
"Matrade is not putting up a single cent. Otherwise we have to beg and steal and borrow from the government. But maintenance is, of course, ours.
"That building, when it is completed in four years, is going to be ours.
"We are getting the building for free, otherwise we have to pay RM628 million, which is a big amount of money."

(*Kat Singapore dulu pun ada persatuan kebajikan/charity group Melayu, tapi depa main muzik. Sweet Charity dulu dipimpin oleh Ramli Sirap, oops Ramli Sarip).

And it is interesting that Tok Pa, aka International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, gave further details.
He said the new Matrade convention centre will DOUBLE the area for conventions in Malaysia. Wow!

This is the data given by him:
- Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre 9,710 sq m of exhibition area
- Putra World Trade Centre 23,504 sq m
- Matrade (current) 13,000 sq m
- Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang 10,000 sq m.

I guess he did not include Putrajaya International Convention Centre, aka Mahathir's Castle, at least 8,000 sq m big, because it is always always always fully booked.
And surprise! There are MANY MORE convention spaces already available in Malaysia - see the list here, including the ones at Mines, Sunway and Genting.

But let me go on: Tok Pa gave us other data.
Like how big Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand convention spaces are. You can read about 'em here (looks like someone did serious pitching for the project).


Singapore
- Singapore Expo 100,000 sq m of exhibition space.
- Suntec Singapore 24,000 sq m (where APEC summit was held). The figure given by Tok Pa is wrong. Actual figure is 100,000 sq m. Apa dah. See data here.
- Marina Bay Sands casino-resort (when completed in 2010) 120,000 sq m.
- Tok Pa didn't include Genting/Resorts World casino in Sentosa, opening 2011 with 35,000 sq m.

Hong Kong
- HK Convention and Exhibition Centre 312,000 sq m.
- Asiaworld Expo 77,000 sq m.

Thailand
- Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre 50,395 sq m.
- Queen Sirkit National Convention Centre 35,000 sq m.
- Impact Arena 140,000 sq m.

So since everyone got all these big spaces, Malaysia also MUST have more.
Never mind the Demand because a persatuan kebajikan will build the place for free.

Anyway, I don't know about Demand for trade shows in Hong Kong and Thailand, but in my newspaper today there is a story about Demand for Singapore conventions.
These are set to bring in at least 50,000 foreign trade guys (ie business executive types) next year.
People call these get-togethers MICE (tikus?) - meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. Read the story here.
In Singapore I guess they are honest enough not just to say how many thousands will turn up, but more importantly the Foreign Visitors, who are the real businessmen.
No use if 100,000 people turned up at your show if they are all makciks, old unkerrs and muthus out for a weekend jaunt.

These are the major MICE coming up in the little red nano (there are about 70-100 altogether):

Singapore Airshow (February)

International Furniture Fair Singapore, held in conjunction with the 27th Asean Furniture Show (March)

Food and Hotel Asia (April)

CommunicAsia (June)

BroadcastAsia (June)

Youth Olympic Games (August)

ITB Asia (October)

Ufi Congress (November)

Anime Festival Asia (November)

18th International Oil and Gas Industry Exhibition and Conference (Osea) (November)

There is more to the story - not shown in the Internet story but it's in the actual paper.
- Suntec said it will host 35 MICE events, 14 are NEW ones. They include Robocup 2010 and the International Conference on Emergency Medicine.
- Marina Bay Sands will host 30 events in 2011 and 2012.

The report said: Business tourism contributed to 40 per cent of tourism receipts last year.

My hope now is for some paper to do similar type of story to show the type of conventions coming up in Malaysia, and the quality of businessmen coming in.
These shows are important for airlines, hotels, food and beverage outlets, even abang teksi.

Singapore ni, termasuk akhbar saya, pandai pakej laporan nak tarik minat pelabur.
Malaysia pulak gemar sangat suka tunjuk negara sedang berkecamuk, bergaduh tak tentu pasal. Buatlah cerita business sikit, brader.
Sebab kalau betul ada Demand, tentu orang sokong projek di Matrade yang akan dibina itu.