A Place In The Sun - Birmingham Show Success

Owners Perspective Magazine, the independent publication for the shared ownership industry, covering fractional ownership, timeshares, private residence clubs, destination clubs and vacation real estate scoped out this year’s A Place In The Sun event in Birmingham ahead of it’s own debut attendence at the 2009 events.

The official release follows:

September 2008’s exhibition at the NEC Birmingham, the UK’s biggest and best-attended this autumn, was a resounding success for exhibitors, visitors and organisers alike. Despite the tough market conditions, A Place in the Sun Live drew a crowd of more than 7,500* serious investors, holiday-home buyers and those looking to emigrate. Exhibitors reported “a real buzz” around the show, with queues of visitors every morning, packed seminars and buyers eager to find their place in the sun.

The quality of visitors was universally reported as high, with research showing that more than ever UK buyers are making use of savings in order to get a foot on the overseas property ladder.

Said Ken Pritchard, Group Event Director: “Although our shows are not as big as they were, reflecting the economic climate, when it comes to providing the biggest and best-quality audience, we deliver time and again. We successfully attracted an extremely valuable core audience of serious buyers with lots of money to spend and exceeded market condiitions. What’s more, a smaller show means less competition among our exhibitors.

“Overall attendance was down only slightly (6%) compared with the February show in Manchester earlier this year, which was of a similar size. Following weeks of extensive media coverage reporting on the declining UK housing market, job losses in the financial sector and a deepening global recession, plus an apparent lack of consumer confidence in the lead-up to the Birmingham show, this is a great result - for us and for an industry in need of some good news.”

Adds Pritchard: “When our exhibitors are happy, we’re happy! What they think really speaks volumes. Many were surprised at the strong turnout but we were confident our market-leading brand would deliver.”

Of the 179 exhibitors that took part over the weekend, 89% expressed satisfaction that they had met their show objectives. Don’t just take our word for it - here are some of their comments:

“The show was a great success in terms of visitors, many more than would have been anticipated in the current economic climate. Clearly there are a lot of people thinking about purchasing property overseas and sales were achieved over the course of the three-day event.”
Robert Nixon, Nirvana International UK

“As usual A Place in the Sun Live lived up to our expectations and provided a platform for continued business.”
Mike Shore, Scott Pinkham International

“The quality of visitors to the show was exceptionally high.”
Pat Tan, Prudential Palms Realty

“We have found this exhibition to be all that we had hoped and more! We hope to see you again next year.”
Tracey Swift, Real Homes in Real Spain

“Having visited other property shows this year, this one is still the market leader, it has the feel-good factor.”
Maggie Waldon, Domisi Development

“A Place in the Sun is the only serious overseas property show.”
Charlie May, Lifestyle Homes

“We always find your shows the best source of quality leads.”
Steve Bailey, Dream Coast Homes

*A Place in the Sun Live is the only UK overseas property exhibition to submit its attendance figures for the international-standard, independent ABC audit. The confirmed ABC-approved figure will follow shortly.

For more information visit http://www.aplaceinthesunlive.com/