The annual Expo Fair was held over the weekend at the SJC Gym and the Chamber of Commerce says it was the biggest year yet. There were 124 booths from 87 companies and over 12,000 people attended during the two days. The 7NEWS team of Keith Swift and Alex Ellis were among the 12,000 and they have this report.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This is what inside the SJC gym looked like on Saturday afternoon and if you thought that was crowded - well its nothing compared to outside where there were throngs of people. All of them - even these famous faces were hunting for deals.
Linda Blease,
"Everybody knows that Expo has the best deals. Whenever you come out here you get the best deals on whether it be toilet paper, food products, phones, and whatever so of course I am out here for the deals."
DJ Busch,
"I came to see what my country has to offer, the different business places. This is usually the spot where I pick up my deals and enjoy myself with my peoples."
Alfrain Supal,
"Coming to Expo every year Keith is always exciting and you get a lot of good deals. For me Expo is extremely, besides being hype, you could get good deals. I guess for me it is the good deals part."
Daedra Haylock,
"Every year its interesting to come just to see the products that are being offered, the offers that they have, mostly Belizean products, and something to do during September time."
And there were a lot of deals - you had a grocery store - this little boy became the sales man for MADISCO and get this - even fresh chicken was on sale. Here are some of the deals you probably wouldn't refuse. First here is Extra House owner's Jack Charles - who was serving sausages.
Jack Charles, Extra House
"We are giving away the h'ordeuvres as you see over there and then we are giving away the half price on my other products, just Expo special."
Luis Salazar, CPBL
"These are very good deals. Usually in the shop these are at higher prices but these are specifically for the Belize Expo for 2007. On average we have a discounted price, depending on the flavor of squashes, between thirty and forty percent. We also have on the juices as well and the concentrates."
Trudy Joseph, Angelus Press
"For the business machines section, which is the section that we're kind of more promoting out here, we have web cams, we have printers, if you notice a lot of people are walking around with Canon printers, because we are offering even better discounts than we give in our stores. We have scanners, we have flash drives. The Angelus Press Limited has the best prices on flash drives and I can go on air and say that."
Sheena Herrera, Brodies
"Monster, we retail it at the store for $6.25. Today we are offering a special price for $5. So that is the deal that we have today. To me we have an amount of cases that we already sold and I've barely seen anyone with Red Bull right now, it is 'lone Monster."
And while he claimed dominance, the two stalls with the most traffic were BTL and Smart. BTL's public relations executive is Lynette Canto and Smart's sales manager is Jorge Chi.
Lynette Canto, BTL's Public Relations Exec.
"One of the things we're doing is the direct top-up where customers can come in and they give their digicell number along with the amount of credit they want on their phone. The cashier will enter it into the system and its immediately sent to their phone."
Jorge Chi, Smart
"We have phones ranging from $125 going up to $225 and the phone models we have are LG, Motorola, and Kyocera."
But in the area of phones, buyers weren't focusing on BTL or Smart. The hottest item was this. Yes it is the Iphone and it made its Belize debut at the expo. Cellular Plus' Said Perdomo says it was the most sought after item at his booth.
Said Perdomo, Cellular Plus
"Right now it is the Iphone. The reason why is because this phone has been out from April and nobody was able to hack it and they just recently hacked it last week and finally it is in Belize. It has a digicell chip and everything is working. It is fully functional and everybody comes to see the phone and everybody wants to know what's up with the Iphone and we have it first."
But you didn't have to spend money at the expo. There were information booths for the Public Utilities Commission, Belize Natural Energy, and there was the Medical Associates Hospital offering free medical checkups -which I took full advantage of: getting my blood pressure tested, weight and height measured, and blood sugar level tested. And so from health needs, to farm fresh food to electronic vanities - it was offered at the expo and twelve people who attended over two days were ready to snap up business offers. And with a crowd like that and offers like what we saw, those who didn't make a deal, probably didn't want to.
Compared to last year, the 12,000 plus that visited the expo showed 6% growth in attendance.
