Corporate

Fair side of the Business

Specializing in trade fair organization, House of Rajkarnicar is developing Himalayan Expo as an exclusive business fair. This year The Expo has lined up a number of new features in addition to the traditional ones

Trade exhibitions have become common occurrences in the country with a number of such events taking place every year. The result has been a growing specialization, and the example is House of Rajkarnicar and its annual event Himalayan Expo, which this year has a number of new features planned as first - time occurrences.

A special display entitled "Made-in-Nepal" is one such first-time event, informs Birendra Rajkarnicar Chairman of House of Rajkarnicar This special exhibit during April 12-16, at Bhaikuti Mandap, is being held this year in lieu of Made-in-Nepal privilion planned for the next year. Nepali industries are to be given a chance to display their products at what is called "a very nominal charge". The products will be displayed as a collage of Nepali products without the presence of any staff from the producers. Interested visitors may contact the producers directly, and any inquiry made at the stand will be passed on to the producers. "This special display is the first step in the effort to promote Nepal’s exports under the umbrella of ‘Himalayan Expo’, according to the event organizer.

Rajkarnicar says his firm has also set up an investment exchange network in the forthcoming Expo. It receives investment proposals from various companies and individuals, and displays them so that people are able to see and study those proposals. Such proposals could be anything from sale of a failing factory to seeking investors for a new venture.

Another new feature of this year’s Himalayan Expo is its focus on franchise business. About a dozen franchisers from India are expected to participate. The idea is to provide an opportunity to people who have small amount to invest, and lack idea about where to invest the money. Under a franchise arrangement, such people benefit as the franchisers provide a package - brand, product, and marketing strategy - on a platter almost literally. One simply has to follow the guidelines, and there will be a business running.

Rajkarnicar started the business of exhibitions in 1991 to promote sales of the knitwear that his firm was exporting. "We felt the need to hold an exhibition by inviting buyers here, so that the producers would have some control over the market," recalls Rajkarnicar. There were about 75 participants and 32 real buyers in that Himalayan Export Fair, as it was called then. That was quite impressive to start with but not enough to call the event a fair, and to make it worthwhile for buyers to come to Nepal.

So, from the following year, Rajkarnicar decided to have Himalayan Expo open to all products and all exhibitors, domestic as well as international. From 1995, a consumer fair - Dashain Mahotsav - was spun off retaining Himalayan Expo as an exclusive business exhibition.

Himalayan Expo ever since has been growing as a specialised business fair as can be seen from the fact that the number of total visitors in Himalayan Expo has been reducing since 1995, while that of business visitors is gradually rising. This is done deliberately to make the event more of a business fair, says Rajkarnicar. To increase the attendance of business people, the House this year has sent some 1000 invitations outside the capital promising one way bus fare to the invitees to participate in the fair.

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Birendra Rajkarnicar

To facilitate easier business transactions, Himalayan Expo has from this year arranged a pre-scheduled appointment program. Every confirmed exhibitor may request pre-arranged meeting with potential buyers and clients. This way the exhibitors already have 15-20 serious potential clients even before the show, and can prepare themselves accordingly.

Talking about the financial aspect of his venture, Rajkarnicar relates that the first three years were pretty much loss - incurring, profitability showing only after the third year. "And that too has gone down since 1996, primarily because we have too many exhibitions, and attention is not paid to the standard of the show", he complains. So much so that exhibitions are today being conducted by people who do not understand the essence of exhibition. And to add to it, exhibition is still considered nothing more than a ‘mela’ by the visitors, the participants as well as the exhibitors, moans Rajkarnicar.

The House of Rajkarnicar itself is to split into two companies in the near future, announces Rajkarnicar. One company would be concerned with organizing exhibitional events while the other would focus on organizing conferences. The growth possibility in conferences - since the main market would be international - is the prime reason for the House taking up conducting conference, Rajkarnicar explains.

The small size of the Nepali market with a very slow economic growth is the outstanding problem behind conducting exhibitions in the country. In India, companies like Nestle would spend millions of rupees on one exhibition. But in Nepal that isn’t likely to happen because the market is so small that "it just isn’t worth the input", views Rajkarnicar, who also has the experience of conducting an exhibition - though not a very successful one - in India. He feels that organizing exhibitional events abroad based only on Nepal would be too small a show and thus there would be no viability. He thus opines that when conducting exhibitions outside Nepal, it should be done within a bigger event that is already taking place. Very much like the Hannover Expo because then, promotional costs will not have to be incurred since that will already have been taken care of.

The smallish Nepali market is also to blame for most of the industrial units not doing well, according to Rajkarnicar. Since there is no market, Nepali entrepreneurs - against the real meaning of the word - have not dared to be creative but have instead taken the safer option to jump into a business that seems to be doing well.

The Himalayan Expo has been a platform for success for quite a few companies and products in the past, Surya Auto Gas being one. Although Rajkarnicar is confident that the 10th Himalayan Expo will be able to provide similar kind of success to other products as well, he warns that companies should not expect to achieve overnight success, for success from expo participation comes from a combination of factors like the product quality, the price and promotion prior to as well as during the event, and of course, the market size.

All said and done, it is the customers that make an exhibition. "Customers that are choosy and understand the value aspect of exhibitions would help in filtering out the good exhibitions from the bad ones," states Rajkarnicar.