Quick takes

Is Hong Kong ready to rev its economic engine?

HKECIA Chairman, Stuart Bailey, has done an excellent job over the last three years lobbying and educating the Hong Kong government about the value of business events. He now points out that it is not just event organisers and venues that need to be ready for the international visitors. All of the supporting industries need trained staff – e.g. hotels, airlines, restaurants, etc. It remains a serious problem.

UFI CEO on the future of trade shows

Kai Hattendorf covers a lot of ground here – the future evolution of trade shows, changing business models, event technology, staffing, sustainability, how and where we will meet and so on. It is nicely summarised in this article.

ASEAN exhibition markets ready to go

A new industry event was launched last week at the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2023. The inaugural Southeast Asia Business Event Forum (SEABEF) featured Edward Liu predicting that three years of the zero-COVID strategy in China will lead to European and US organisers put more emphasis on South-east Asian markets. We shall soon see if there is any truth to that…