Weekly Newsletter
Australia, 16th May: National Media, an Australian exhibition organiser, announced the company has acquired some key events from Specialised Events. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The acquired exhibitions include: Foodservice Australia, Food & Hospitality Queensland, Aged Care Catering Summit, National Restaurant Conference, and the Australian Chef of the Year competition.
Sydney, 16th May: This week, Business Events Sydney (BESydney) released some details regarding its growing global business event pipeline as Sydney aims to Australia’s leading business events host city.
According to BESydney, Sydney has confirmed that it has won a total of 103 events until 2030 that will generate more than US$338 million in direct expenditure for the local economy. It is expected to attract about 128,000.
Taipei, 22nd May: Taipei recently opened a new venue designed for mega events. The Taipei Dome, a multipurpose stadium, is located in the Xinyi District. It is expected to massively boost business activities within the city.
According to Cheng Peng-Ching from Taipei’s Department of Information and Tourism, the government plans to market the new venue for concerts, festivals and sporting events. It may also host large exhibitions as well as other culture activities. Initially, the Taipei Dome will now focus on attracting events appealing to the local and South-east Asian market. At a later stage, they hope to target the long-haul market. (Taylor Swift, perhaps?)
Hong Kong, 22nd May: Ever since Taylor Swift played six shows in Singapore, Hong Kong’s government has felt the pressure to up its mega event game. This week, Chief Executive of the HKSAR, John Lee, promised a “mega event” will be held once every two days to “boost Hong Kong’s visitor economy and redefine its international image.” The definition of mega event may be stretched in order to host one mega event every other day.
According to the government of Hong Kong, a total of 210 “mega” events will be held during 2024, expecting to attract about 1.7 million international visitors who will generate US$550 million in economic impact.
At IMEX last week, Constellar was trying to position Singapore Expo as a centre ideal for festivalisation events. SingEx has a lot of competition with the more centrally located Marina Bay Sands and Suntec. In addition, MBS has announced expansion plans. SingEx has, however, hosted the Fintech Festival which attracts 60,000 plus.
Meredith has signed a deal with AI tech company OpenAI. The Wall Street Journal’s parent company News Corp signed an AI content deal with Google. Soon there won’t be any human journalists or digital markets left standing.
BSG is often asked: “What are the hot topics in Asia?” “Which industries are high grow?” There is rarely an answer that holds true across the region – with few exceptions. Somewhat depressingly, security and “military adjacent” topics such as drones, surveillance tech and homeland security segments are one of those exceptions.
Figure 1: BSG B2B Media Index vs. All Tracked B2B Stocks (price movement over past 12 months)
Figure 2: BSG B2B Media Index vs. All Tracked B2B Stocks (price movement since January 2024)
Business Strategies Group is the only market intelligence & strategy consulting firm in Asia with a special focus on business media, information and events. Our services include research, market intelligence, mergers and acquisition support and strategy development.
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