Thailand’s largest book fair starts March 28-April 8

The Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand (PUBAT) announces its readiness to organize Thailand’s biggest book fair "The 52nd National Book Fair and the 22nd Bangkok International Book Fair", which will be the greatest event in 52 years.

It will be the first time in history that there will be a “Bangkok Rights Fair,” a business matching activity between copyright owners and world-class agencies. This activity is expected to create more than 350 million baht in terms of copyright trading value.

The Book Expo 2024 is well underway, bringing over one million books from 322 publishers to exhibit in 914 booths, covering an exhibition area of more than 20,000 square meters.

Moreover, more than 100 interesting exhibitions and activities will be presented throughout 12 days of the event, starting from March 28 to April 8, 2024, from 10am to 9pm at Hall 5-7, LG Floor, Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.

On March 18, 2024, Suwich Rungwattanapaiboon, president of PUBAT, revealed that this year's event will be held under the concept so-called "Booklympics" in welcoming the upcoming Olympic Games. 

"The 52nd National Book Fair and the 22nd Bangkok International Book Fair" will receive the graciousness of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn to preside over the event's opening ceremony on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at 10am.

The event is divided into three zones: Book Zone, Exhibition Zone, and Activity Zone. 

At Book Zone, there will be seven categories of books: 1. Novel, Literature, and Fiction 2. Book Wonderlands which are Comic Books and Books for Teenagers 3. Children's and Educational books 4. Foreign books 5. General books 6. Old books and 7. Non-books. More than one million books from 322 leading publishers and bookstores will participate in this historical book event in the country. 

At the Exhibition Zone: Cat Country Exhibition, a translated literature by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn by Nanmee Books Company Limited, Outstanding Book Exhibition 2024 by the Office of the Basic Education Commission Ministry of Education (OBEC), Phanwaenfah Prize Literary Exhibition: "Phanwaenfah Prize the finish line is not too far away" by the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, Proud Songkran Exhibition by the National Soft Power Strategy Committee, and What Read Exhibition: What do famous people read?. 

Activity Zone: more than 100 activities will be available, with the Booklympics competition, as a highlight activity to search for the best talent in the book industry covering five areas: 1. Designer 2. Writer 3. Proofreader 4. Top Seller 5. Best reader. Other highlights are the “One Reader Inspires Million People Foundation” activity by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand.

This activity is created to raise funds for agencies that promote reading but lack funds. It will provide budget support for “Buy the right books” for 20 organizations (10,000 baht each), totalling 200,000 baht so that those organizations can buy new books by themselves, and the activity so-called “Why the books are having for?”, an activity that will provide readers with an opportunity to express their opinions.

Suwich added that the 22nd Bangkok International Book Fair is also well underway, receiving greater feedback than expected. Eleven world-class publishers from nine countries will join to exhibit 18 booths at the event. Those are such as from Taiwan, Japan, China, and Ukraine. They will present books and cultures of each nation, covering printing technology, culture, and learning of languages.

Furthermore, this will be the first time in Thailand that the PUBAT join forces with the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau or TCEB to organize the "Bangkok Rights Fair", a business matching for copyright trading activity between Thai publishers and international agencies under the Business to Business (B2B) platform.

There will be representatives from 34 foreign agents from 14 countries and 53 publishers/distributors from Thailand participating in the business matching between March 28-30, 2024. This activity is expected to create not less than US$10 million or equivalent to approximately 351 million baht in terms of copyright trading value. 

As part of this event, the PUBAT will organize a Business Field Trip, taking international publishers and copyright agents to participate in reading culture by visiting bookstores, printing houses, and leading Thai publishers. Sanont Wangsrangboon, Deputy Governor of Bangkok, will be an honorary guest speaker for this special event. He will provide information about the reading promotion policy of Bangkok as one of the world book cities and Unesco cities of learning to all participants at Bangkok City Hall. 

Additionally, PUBAT has partnered with Wisesight (Thailand) Co., Ltd, bringing the system https://wisesight.com/th/zocialeye/, an Artificial Intelligence or AI system for searching information.

This will allow us to get information from every social media platform where people are talking about the book fair whether before the event, during the event, or after the event so that we can acknowledge the perspectives that the general public has about the book fair.

Based on that information, we will be able to analyze that information to prevent and solve problems that may occur as well as use data to analyze consumer behaviour to create events and activities that are more relevant to the target groups in the future.