Cai Guanghui, for the first time in his life, hates fried rice with chicken a traditional Chinese dish.

"I just don't want to have any more of it. I'm fed up with it," says Cai, who in recent days has eaten most of his dinners on flights. Unfortunately for Cai, chicken fried rice is a common meal on Chinese airlines.

Cai, marketing manager of a Hong Kong exhibition company, wrapped up a tight tour on one of those days: He set off from Hong Kong, travelled to Nanning, Chengdu, Wenzhou and Hangzhou, then returned to Hong Kong.

Cai's boss awaited his return, so he could read Cai's reports on the exhibition markets of Wenzhou and Chengdu, two of China's second-tier cities.

Cai is not alone. Nowadays, hundreds of researchers are being sent by Hong Kong's exhibition companies to collect information about the Chinese mainland's vast small to medium-sized cities, and its rural areas.

This, analysts suggest, is the prelude to firms' massive inroads into the fledgling, but promising, markets - where local manufacturers and traders are becoming increasingly conscious about branding and advertising.

Such moves come as Hong Kong's exhibition organizers are feeling the pinch, resulting from increasing competition with foreign giants, in China's big cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai that they once dominated.

"They (foreign giants) are treading on our turf," says an official with a Hong Kong company. He gave only his surname, Cheung.

"The competition in Shanghai and Guangzhou is cut-throat."

Hong Kong's exhibition companies are losing ground to foreign giants, such as British company Reed Exhibitions, in China's economically active coastal cities.

Foreign firms, under China's commitments to the World Trade Organization, can now enjoy preferential policies the central government once extended only to firms in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the free-trade pact called the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement.

"But, never mind," Cheung says. "China is so big. We can find a wealth of opportunities in the small and medium-sized Chinese cities."

Cheung says his company began considering entering those regions in the second half of last year. The firm, he adds, has conducted extensive surveys in 10 cities in western and central China.

"Some of those cities are rather developed, in terms of their manufacturing and trading industries, but they do not have good exhibition brands yet," Cheung says.

"With our experience and technology, we can stand out in these less-competitive cities."

Cheung, who refuses to name all the cities his company has surveyed, says his firm has held jewellery and furniture shows in Chengdu, in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Indeed, many Hong Kong exhibition organizers have tried to hold expositions in some medium-sized inland cities, says Stanley Chu, chairman of the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Industry Association.

The "go-inland" crusade extends beyond individual companies.

Chu's association, which represents Hong Kong's exhibition industry, realizes its members have a small amount of time as a head start.

If Hong Kong's companies cannot build a stronghold in Chinese mainland's vast interior as quickly as possible, they might face even more intense competition.

There have been increasing signs that foreign giants are quickly becoming acquainted with the Chinese mainland's market, and are waiting for further policy changes that will allow them to expand throughout China.

And some local players are growing fast, especially since a series of mergers and acquisitions.

The association's most recent big move was in January, when it signed memorandums with its counterpart in Hangzhou, in East China's Zhejiang Province, to pave the way for its members to enter the city.

A similar co-operation deal with Yiwu, in the same province, is being negotiated.

The selections of those two cities were deliberate.

Both mercantile cities have numerous renowned trading fairs, which are on the verge of going global. More importantly, perhaps, there are few competitive companies operating in the cities.

However, marching into interior regions poses a real test to Hong Kong's firms' ability to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), says Teng Fei, a senior researcher with the State Council's Development Research Centre.

"Manufacturers and traders in mainland's interior are less aware of IPR protection compared with their counterparts in coast regions," he told China Business Weekly.

Local manufacturers most certainly will copy the designs of goods exhibited in those areas, he says.

Local exhibition companies in those areas, currently small in scale and old-fashioned in operation, are likely to become major competitors to Hong Kong's companies within "a few years," analysts caution.

"Local firms are quick learners," says Liu Hongwei, a researcher with the Beijing International Institute for Urban Development.

"They will clone Hong Kong's companies' operation modes and ideas as soon as the latter becomes successful.

"In that case, Hong Kong players could choose to partner with local players, such as joint ventures or strategic co-operation, or come up with new ideas and better services to beat them."

Editor: Olivia