Japan Home & Building Show 2016

Once again, BC Wood will be organizing the Canadian Pavilion at the Japan Home & Building Show on behalf of the wood industry. The venue will be Tokyo Big Sight as usual, but the dates have been pushed up by several weeks as Tokyo is preparing for the Olympics thus new facilities are being added to Big Sight so it can host some of the competitions. This year the JHS will run from October 26th to 28th.

There will be a few other big changes to this year’s show in addition to the schedule change. Japan decided to host the 2020 Olympics in order to market itself to foreign travelers. However, for a variety of reasons, the number of in-bound visitors already surpassed the official goal of 20 million by 2020 last year and now the target is 40 million visitors in 2020. As a result, Japanese hotels are running at full capacity so many operators are making investments in both existing and new properties. The organizers of the Japan Home Show have been watching this trend and have decided to target this industry by adding a new zone for interior fixtures to this year’s show. This along with Japantex, which will again be held together with the JHS, will mean that the show will draw in more architects and designers than ever before.

Additionally, the JHS organizers are for the first time adding a dedicated kitchen and bath zone which will tie in nicely with this new design focus for both the housing and hospitality industries. It has always been strange that Japan did not have a kitchen and bath show so it is great to see the Japan Home Show adding this. To make room for these new zones, the organizers moved the hospital industry exhibition to a separate show and thus freeing up all six of Big Sight’s East Halls for this year’s Japan Home & Building Show. It will be big!

Those interested in learning more about the show should contact Jim Ivanoff at ivanoff@canadawood.jp