Only half as many cars were ordered during the first seven days of the current Thailand International Motor Expo as during the same period of last year's event.

Orders reached 19,262 units at the 30th Motor Expo from November 29 to Thursday. That compares with 38,637 vehicles ordered during the first seven days of the 2012 expo.

Meanwhile, the average price of vehicles available at the auto show increased to about Bt1.02 million, from Bt800,000 last year.

Organiser Kwanchai Paphatphong, chairman of Inter Media Consultants, said the higher number of orders last year was fuelled by the government's first-car scheme. Attendance is also down this year, possibly because of the current political conflict.

He predicted that overall orders at this year's Motor Expo, which will be held until Tuesday, would be about 43,000 units, 14.6 per cent lower than the previous target of 50,000 units.

In the first seven days, Toyota garnered the most orders at 3,916, or 20.3 per cent of the total. Honda followed with 3,299 orders or 17.1 per cent, Nissan with 2,042 (10.6 per cent), Isuzu with 2,013 (10.5 per cent), and Mitsubishi with 1,741 vehicle orders, accounting for 9 per cent.

Among luxury vehicles, Mercedes-Benz posted the highest number of orders at 547 cars in the first seven days of the show, followed by BMW with 376.

For premium motorcycles, 1,060 units were ordered in the same period. Honda saw the most orders with 573, followed by Kawasaki with 130 and Ducati with 93. Kwanchai expects a total of 2,100 motorcycles to be ordered during the entire period of the auto show, up 16.3 per cent from last year.

"We expect the number of visitors coming to our fair in the remaining days, which will include the weekend, to reach about 1.35 million, or 15 per cent lower than last year as a result of the political difficulty," he said.

-- The Nation 2013-12-7

Not surprised...I had planned to go to Bangkok for two days for the show and possibly buy a new SUV early this week, even made and paid for hotel room, but with all the colored shirts going at each other and show venue being not too far from the government area and the possible traffic chaos I said <deleted>-it and stayed and relaxed in Patters instead.

That's why we went on the King's birthday, traffic not too bad but when we left (In our truck) at about 1500 there was a lot of cars arriving at the expo.

A lot of people inside the expo, mostly family's having a day out, saw very few expats.

I had planned to order a Ducati Hyperstrada at the expo but since they would not give anything for free (Well a Ducati belt bag, LOL) I didn't order any, will most likely do later here in Pattaya.

I went there yesterday, also left from the Pattaya area and didnt experience problem with the political unrest in BKK. Just use the tollway as much as possible and you are good to go :-) Took me about 2 hours from Pattaya to Impact in BKK.

The protests are only a part of it - the market is simply struggling to move units for the last few months. Sales figures next month will help tell the real story - my guess is even once all the dealer figures are in, it will still be one of the worst sales seasons in recent memory.

Nothing wrong with a buyers market - lap it up while it lasts