SPLASH! Asia succeeds in Singapore

The first SPLASH! trade show held in Asia has been hailed a great success by visitors, delegates and exhibitors. The Singapore event has established critical industry ties between numerous Asian countries, Australasia, the United States and Europe.

The event was hailed by organiser Simon Cooper as Asia’s first truly international trade show for the pool and spa industry.

Held at Singapore’s Raffles Convention Centre over May 4 and 5, the event attracted 45 exhibitors from Australia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, France, USA, Malaysia, UK, Germany and China, and was considered the first exhibition to address the opportunities and challenges facing the Asian pool and spa sector.

Visitors and delegates expressed their enthusiasm about the quality and number of exhibits, and were particularly impressed by the seminar speakers. Exhibitors commented that while the quantity of visitors was excellent, it was the quality of the visitors that made the event stand out – the visitors had come to do business, not “kick tyres”.

Simon Cooper, Managing Director of organiser Interpoint Events and Publisher of SPLASH! Magazine says that while the award-winning SPLASH! Trade Shows had been previously held successfully in Australia and New Zealand, this was their first event in Asia.

“We recognised the market here was different, and has a greater emphasis on the commercial sector,” he says. “The seminar program reflected this with the most popular seminars being on Water Chemistry and Commercial Filtration.”

SPLASH! Asia was sponsored by Pentair. Hugh Smith, Director of Pentair Pool Group (APAC) says that the show was definitely what he had expected.

“We had visitors from all over the region,” he says. “There is a real thirst for knowledge and specialty training. All in all – fantastic! And we will certainly be included in the future.”

The Welcome Reception Sponsor was NSPI’s David Close. He says that SPLASH! Asia worked well, describing the event as an amazing hub for all of Asia.

“We fielded questions from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Arab Emirates and even India,” he says. “There was a good steady flow of prospects. Our Professional Development Workshop was well received, and the topics generated a series of separate meeting with Singapore Government officials. Follow-up emails were back in Brisbane before we were!”

The show attracted more than 650 attendees from 21 countries. More than 60 per cent of attendees came from outside Singapore making SPLASH! Asia a truly international event. Talks were held with a number of government and sporting organisations to further develop the event for 2013.

One of the visitors was Gurcharan Kaur from Crystal Pool Services in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She says that she had read about the show in SPLASH! magazine, and attended because it was so close.

“We were looking for pool robotic systems,” she says. “We saw a lot of goods that interested us and we actually bought the robot systems here. It made it easy for us. This show really solved my problem.”

Prasad Jothirathna from Waterways Engineering in Sri Lanka also attended because of the proximity to his homeland.

“It’s very close for me to get to Singapore from Sri Lanka,” he says. “The show was very interesting – I met a lot of good suppliers and I was very impressed with that. The water chemistry seminar was very good – Tom Lachocki is very knowledgeable. I liked seeing so many suppliers of pool equipment and pool finishes and pumps.”

One of the many exhibitors was Chris Adams from Flolux. He says that he was pleased with the quality of enquiry.

“We were very happy with everyone who’s come through,” he says. “It’s been brilliant. We made a lot of contacts in Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines and a few Australians as well. It’s been worth its weight in gold, really.”

Another exhibitor was Peter Hogg from Magnum Filters. He had a number of enquiries, but one in particular made the trip especially fruitful.

“This guy came along at 2:30,” he says. “All he does in Indonesia is filters – spa filters, swimming pool filters, oil filters – just filters. And he said, can I be your distributor? And I said yes, that’s what we’re looking for. He said we start in Indonesia, then maybe we go to Singapore, maybe we go to the Philippines. That’s exactly what we were looking for!”

There will be a more detailed review of the SPLASH! Asia Pool and Spa Trade Show in the June July 2011 printed issue of SPLASH!