VOL.74/2024.09

Visiting Book Fair Thailand 2017

Welcome K-Book to Thailand!

2017.6.30

It is well known that Korean books are drawing great interest in Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian publishing market has been acknowledged for its huge growth potential and Korean publishes are also seeking new opportunities for exporting their books. The Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea will visit Southeast Asian countries and introduce Korean books consecutively for two years.

△ View of Visiting Book Fair Thailand 2017

For two days from June 1st to 2nd 2017, the Bangkok Landmark Hotel in Thailand was crowded with Korean and Thai publishers. This was because the “Visiting Book Fair” was held in Thailand, where various Korean books are introduced directly to the oversea market to meet the high demand.

△ Export consultation between Korean and Thai publishers

Many Korean publishing companies, which are interested in entering the Southeast Asian market, attended the book fair. Officials from Darakwon, an educational books publisher mainly generating Korean language books for foreigners said, “We decided due to the fact that Korean language education is receiving high attention in Thailand. We introduced more than 100 Korean language-teaching books through the company catalog and it received a good response from university professors and other visitors.

In addition, Ringer's Communications, which runs an e-book solution and an e-book store called OeBook said, "We wanted to introduce more romance novels to ASEAN market." adding, "We selected the top 10 popular books in Korea and introduced them to the Thai people, and were deeply impressed with their high interest". Some people said that the concept of a “Visiting Book Fair” was very efficient, considering that individual publishers spend a great amount of time and money to find and meet suitable buyers in overseas markets

△ Seminar of Export Business

△ Book Donation Event

In addition, a seminar by Thai local experts was held on June 1 2017, the opening day of the Book Fair. Korean visitors were able to hear various speeches from major Thai Publisher SE-ED, Ookbee the largest platform company in Southeast Asia, and a professor from Thammasat University. On the following afternoon, they donated all of their display books to local schools.

“Visiting Book Fair” is a business to business oriented book fair that supports companies distributing Korean books to overseas markets and copyright exports. It has been held six times in China, once in Thailand and once in Taiwan from 2015 to 2016. The Visiting Book Fair Thailand was viewed as being very successful for having over 10 million dollars of export consultation in two days. They will expand their territory to three Southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia) and Latin America (Mexico) in this year.