Hong Kong plays up (possible) year-end events

The government in Hong Kong has eased its mandatory hotel quarantine from seven days to three days followed by four days of “medical surveillance.” While any progress is welcome, if those restrictions are still in place for the Hong Kong Sevens (rugby tournament) and a global financial summit scheduled in November, then those two events are likely to be muted affairs at best. Monocle reports that “top Wall Street CEOs told Hong Kong officials last week that they will not attend (the financial summit) unless they can skip quarantine entirely.”

Korea cracks ICCA’s top ten for first time

ICCA has released its 2022 destination ranking and Korea has broken into the top ten replacing the Netherlands. Korea was helped in part by ICCA’s decision to include hybrid meetings in the 2022 results. COVID led ICCA to refine its approach to the report by creating the Destination Performance Index which factored in meetings that were affected by the pandemic. (See longer article for details.)

Japan’s CVBs want more physical events

Japan hosted 3,620 international conferences in 2019. Those conferences attracted nearly two million delegates. In 2020, Japan hosted just over 220. Now, as restrictions are removed, the country’s CVBs are focused on rebuilding the industry in the wake of the global pandemic.

More good news from Singapore

While Hong Kong languishes behind its wall of COVID restrictions, the Lion City is back. Key events held in 2022 include: the Singapore Airshow in February, Singapore International Water Week in April, and the Global Health Security Conference held in June. In addition, this week the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that the successful Fintech Festival would be back in November.