Expos, equipment firms, trainers eye China market

As diving becomes a more mainstream sport, professional exhibition operators are seeing China as a key market for growth.

The Diving & Resort Travel Show, one of the most crowded diving exhibitions, held its Beijing show in August, covering a wide range of related business such as recreational diving, technical diving, free diving, diving medical cares, ocean tourism, underwater photography and marine conservation.

Jason Chong, president of DRT Show, said diving has a history of six decades, but as a commercial activity, it entered the China market just over a decade ago.

"The first diving exhibition started in China over 10 years ago, but back then there were few companies participating in this industry. It was hard to organize exhibitions back then and the exhibition company had to shut down," Chong said.

He said he was lucky to pick the right time, which helped to steer clear of the old path, and make the most of the rise of the diving business in China.

"We started in Shanghai, then Beijing and Guangzhou," he said. This year, DRT Show has organized eight exhibitions so far, including one each in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

"We are valued high in the development of diving in China. In recent years, we have seen the market saturate in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea," Chong said. "In the whole of Asia, only China has seen tremendous growth in the diving industry - about 30 percent annually.

"It has encouraged many foreign brands to come to China, including those specializing in equipment and training."

Patrick Yip, CEO of Song Tao Trading (Shenzhen) Company, which specializes in high-end diving equipment trade, said the company is determined to bring top brands like Suunto from Finland to China.

"Since Suunto entered the Chinese market, we have carefully listened to what Chinese divers need and paid attention to their habits," he said.

However, as the local market is still quite young, Chong said foreign brands have certain concerns.

"A number of foreign brands obviously want to enter the Chinese market but they haven't yet. For one, they worry their products will be duplicated - it's an inevitable issue every line of work could face during the development phase."

He said the market needs more regulation to sustain its fast growth and attract more foreign companies.