TTM locks out media on day two

Surprise, hosted media discover the invite was only for the first day of the show.

MEDIA is like a bad penny, it just keeps turning up, when least expected or wanted.

That has to be the abiding impression executives at the Tourism Authority of Thailand want TTM’s invited media to take home with them.

After spending an enormous budget on flying in hosted media, placing them in posh accommodation, wining and dining them, the TAT decided to lock them out of the second day’s session of the annual TTM trade show.

This tiny show is limited enough without adding restrictions on who can walk the trade show aisles.  So it came as quite a surprise to media representatives, who bothered to turn up at the event that their invitation was limited to just the first-day.

Admittedly, there was only a smattering of invited media around to complain, but the few who thought it was worth their while to check out the booths were told to scarper.

Security guards had orders to only admit, sellers and buyers. Oh, I forgot, TAT officials could wander where they pleased as the hosts.  They tended to limit their presence to lolling around in their cushy booth.

Frankly, I thought it was bad form that TAT officials blamed the lock-out on the sellers who rented booths.

A high ranking TAT official explained that the media was banned on the second day because sellers said they didn’t want noisy journalists interfering with their discussions with buyers. So are we to assume they were happy on day one, but miffed with the media on day two?

TAT reckoned the media might upset sensitive rate negotiations. Actually, I was trying to enter the hall to fulfil an appointment with Spiceroads’ managing director, Struan Robertson, who had very few appointments.  Most of the buyers flee the scene on the second day, disappearing for a long weekend at the beach, while leaving the aisles largely deserted.

TAT’s main beef focused on the fear that some media were really selling advertising. They apparently wander around selling as hard as the poor folks who paid for the booths.

Then sellers should report them to the organiser. Ban them, but why penalise journalists who genuinely want to learn about Thailand’s travel products and are serious enough to stay the course for two days?

Standing at the door, I admit I gave a TAT official an earful, especially when he said it was standard international practice.

“Hello, I have personally attended travel shows, worldwide, for 35 years and never heard of a ban on the media walking the aisles.”

I lied. There was one instance, almost three decades ago when Singapore hosted the ATF. On the eve of the event, it banned trade media from all three days of the Travex component. (No other media was interested in tourism in those days.)

I can recall the fun we had writing a letter to SCOT, the committee that ran Asean tourism affairs, stating that we would go home if the ban was not rescinded.

Editor of New Zealand’s Travel Digest, the late Tony Glanville, led the charge and three of us, who were considered noisy, interfering trade journalists, were invited for a hurried “pow wow” with Asean tourism leaders including the TAT governor of that era.

The ban was rescinded and media representatives were allowed to tour the Travex show. TAT embraced the same argument that Singapore sprang on the media back in the 1970s: “Sellers don’t want media circulating a mart.”

ATF has a healthy tradition of being open to the media, since that early hiccup. ITB in Berlin, WTM in London, ATM in Dubai ATE in Australia, Tranz in New Zealand, Pata Travel Mart and Pow Wow in the US are all wide open to the media.  That is the way it has always been.

To set the record straight, the high ranking TAT official, who I suspect sits in Europe and attends shows like the WTM and ITB, should identify which reputable international trade show limits media access?

I can certainly assure him that the decision to restrict media at trade shows is against the grain and sentiments expressed by every governor and director general who have served TAT since its founder the late General Chalermchai. In 50 years,  TAT has stood for open access for all media at its own shows and for numerous events it hosted for the Pacific Asia Travel Association and Asean.

Of course, there is a code of conduct that media should follow.  Don’t interfere, or barge in when a buyer is talking to a seller. If you are in a booth, chatting to a seller, be prepared to disappear as soon as an appointment session resumes.

We are there to listen, pick up facts rather than parade our publications or, god forbid, sell advertising.

International media sought out officials at the TAT press centre to express their dismay at the second day ban. I was lucky.

A TAT official walked me in. “For you Khun Don, no problem,” he said, as if he was guiding me on an exclusive tour of the crown jewels.

I didn’t say thank you. I just wondered why, after all the hosting expenses, a similar gesture was not forthcoming for invited international media.