What makes KINTEX be a successful exhibition center? - IAEE

III.
Case Study: KINTEX
1. History
KINTEX is the exhibition and convention center located at Ilsan, which is the biggest exhibition center in
Korea. Also it is the one of the cutting-edge exhibition centers in Asia.
KINTEX has developed a three-story building with exhibition and convention facilities on a 224,800m 2 site; it had a grand
opening on April 29, 2005, after completion of the first phase in a three-phase construction project.
1999~2005 (Before the opening)
The KINTEX project was initiated and co-funded by national and local government to meet a deficiency in the domestic
supply of venues for exhibitions and conventions. The other goal was to achieve the globalization of the domestic exhibition
and convention industry. Actually this project was initiated at 1999 after Goyang city was selected as the building site for
the new exhibition center. And then the master plan was drawn up for the construction of a new exhibition center which
would also serve as an exhibition business backup complex. During the construction period from 2003 to 2005, KINTEX
had developed its corporate operation model. Firstly, the mid-term management strategy and ISP business plan to establish
efficient information system were devised in collaboration with “Accenture,” one of the world’s best consulting firms. It was
a first challenge for KINTEX to make a corporate strategy from operation-level to a corporate-level. The corporate-level
strategy covering the needed organization, marketing, promotion, and exhibition business is incorporated into the mid-term
management strategy.
And the ISP business plan presents an idea of building an information system for a more efficient management of KINTEX.
Especially the 8 IT systems were developed for corporate management including ERP, CRM, FMS (Facility Management
System) etc. It was a great challenge for KINTEX because no other exhibition centers in Korea had ever developed such
systems before. So KINTEX had to develop whole systems with its own studies.
Figure III-1. KINTEX views
2005~2007 (After the opening)
KINTEX has accomplished many successful results for 3 years from 2005~2007. There are four categories related to this successexhibitions,
conventions, attendees and services. Firstly KINTEX has been a No.1 leader in total exhibition spaces. The market
share in exhibition spaces is 28%, and the total used spaces are 10,500,000m 2 for 3 years. That means KINTEX uses every
29,000m 2 a day and it’s very important factor because the average daily exhibition spaces are still below 20,000m 2 in Korea.
Chart III-2 shows the comparison of average daily exhibition spaces between KINTEX and other venues in Korea. It
indicates that KINTEX is very successful in exhibition business in just 3 years of its opening. So it will be analyzed later how
KINTEX makes great success in exhibition industry.