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Tobacco Asia booth at TPE Tobacco Procucts Expo: on the left, Emerson Leonard, sales director, Tobacco Asia; on the right, Candas Carmen, representative of both Tobacco Asia and the InterTabac/InterSupply exhibitions for North America.
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Onsite at TPE Tobacco Products Expo, the first tobacco exhibition held in well over a year.
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Onsite at TPE Tobacco Products Expo, the first tobacco exhibition held in well over a year.
Tobacco Plus Expo (TPE) was held successfully in Las Vegas last week welcoming an expected 5,000 participations over the 3-day event. This annual exhibition was both the first tobacco exhibition held in over a year, and the first exhibition of any kind held at the popular event space Las Vegas Convention Center for over a year.
Tobacco Asia magazine was there reporting that although many participants were very enthusiastic extolling a “back-to-business” spirit, they noted that – due to continuing travel restrictions and uncertainties – the event lacked much international participation. Normally there are at least 20-30 exhibitors from China alone; this year there were only a few Chinese brands present and the booths were manned by US personnel.
Although TPE was held successfully, coinciding with the US Centers for Disease Control advise that the fully vaccinated need no longer wear masks in public, exhibitions in Europe remain a challenge for the foreseeable future. Last March, due to Covid spikes and vaccine rollout uncertainty, Messe Dortmund took the extraordinary decision to again postpone its massively popular InterTabac (www.intertabac.com) and InterSupply (www.intersupply.com) scheduled for September 2021. Instead of subjecting participants to incalculable risk to health and investment, the show is postponed again to Sept 15-17, 2022.
World Tobacco Europe originally scheduled for May 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria, has seen date changes at least two times and the new dates are May 18-18, 2022, in Sofia.
The organizers of TPE must feel charmed. Their annual exhibition, normally held in late January each year was last held in January 2022, and was the last tobacco exhibition held before the pandemic. All other shows have been cancelled and postponed. Although this year’s TPE was delayed until May, the organizers must be among the only promoters globally with an annual exhibition that have not had to skip a year.
TPE 2022 will be held January 26-28, 2022, in Las Vegas. www.tobaccoplusexpo.com.