Weekly Newsletter
Singapore, 8th February: Marina Bay Sands (MBS) in Singapore has announced plans to begin a massive renovation. The upgrade and expansion project will transform its existing infrastructure, which opened in 2010. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
Read MoreThailand, 3rd February: VNU Asia Pacific, an international exhibition organiser, has announced a new partnership with the Thai-Italian Chamber of Commerce (TICC). TICC will officially become a corporate partner of VNU Asia Pacific later in 2022.
Under the terms of the new partnership, TICC will support VNU Asia Pacific with marketing and promotion, with a special focus on two key events: AGRITECHNICA ASIA and Free From Food Asia.
Philippines/Australia, 28th January: Good news from some parts of Asia. This week, the Philippines and Australia announced they will reopen to vaccinated tourists beginning in February.
Read MoreMonocle offers an accurate short summary of Hong Kong’s unfailing determination to take strong positions against its self-interest. There will be no quick recovery from this for Hong Kong.
Mix Meetings offers a good short summary of which countries/territories are being sensible and which are not.
This week, TCEB and various key government stakeholders in Thailand announced plans to organise Thailand's first-ever air show in 2027. The event will be held near Pattaya in the country’s developing Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), and the show will offer direct competition to the long-established Singapore Airshow.
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 2022)
Is the fever breaking in Hong Kong? Perhaps. Yesterday, the Hong Kong government announced that it will reduce its mandatory hotel quarantine from 21 days down to 14 days beginning on 5th February. This follows Thailand decision, last week to revert to its “Test and Go” approach and after the WTO noted that travel restrictions do more harm than good.
Interesting, somewhat lengthy article on Las Vegas Sands’ long-term corporate strategy which essentially features cashing out of its Las Vegas properties and remaining committed to its investments in Asia.
Adeline Vancauwelaert has been hired as UFI’s new Chief Operating Officer. She will join the global association on 22nd February from Comexposium where she was an event director for many years.
Singapore, 25th January: Singapore’s international visitor arrivals (IVA) and tourism receipts (TR) posted a modest recovery in the last three quarters of 2021 – compared to the year before.
According to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), Singapore welcomed 330,000 IVA in 2021 and recorded S$1.9 billion (US$1.4 billion) in tourism receipts. IVA jumped 221% in the last three quarters of 2021, while TR was up 92% in the second and third quarter of 2021 – compared to the very low base in 2020.
Hong Kong, 25th January: Hong Kong-listed Pico Far East Holdings reported its annual results for the year ended 31st October 2021. The company posted revenues of US$521 million, up 18% year-on-year. Pico’s net profit jumped an impressive 171% during the year, amounting to US$18 million. Diluted earnings per share in the year were HK$0.1105 (US$0.014).
Read MoreLyon, 20th January: Last week, GL events released its financial results for the year ended 31st December 2021. Revenues for GL events Exhibitions were €144.5 million (US$164 million), up 48% year-on-year, driven in part by acquisitions and in part by the easing of restrictions in some markets in 2021.
Read MoreSingapore, 25th January: MMI Asia Pte. Ltd., Messe München’s subsidiary in Southeast Asia, announced the company has taken over ownership and operation of the Asia Climate Forum (ACF) from Media Generation Ventures Limited (MGV), the former owners.
Read MoreShare price movement
Read MoreThe Thai government has decided to start its quarantine-free entry program for all vaccinated travellers as of 1st February. Thailand suspended the programme in December as a result of the omicron variant, but the country has experienced low hospitalization and mortality rates despite increased case numbers.
After recording case numbers barely in double digits, Hong Kong has closed gyms, secondary schools, dine-in restaurants (after 6pm) and so on. Then this week, the Hong Kong government made worldwide headlines by taking the decision to euthanise 2,000 hamsters after it made a very suspect claim about a hamster-to-human transmission of COVID-19. It is difficult to know how they can top that… but they will certainly give it a go.
This is not an Asian deal, but worth noting that M&A activity is really picking up at this point. Reed Exhibitions announces the acquisition of 3rd Street Group, the owners and organisers of Big Data LDN.
Sarawak, 12th January: Looking for some good news, Business Events Sarawak (BE Sarawak) reported that Sarawak has secured a total of 109 future business events and these events are expected to generate an estimated economic impact of RM 365 million (US$87.2 million) and create more than 28,000 new job opportunities. According to BE Sarawak, the secured events will welcome more than 43,000 delegates and generate direct delegate expenditure of RM 193.7 million (US$46.3 million).
Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Sarawak’s newly-appointed minister of tourism, said, “Business events are playing an increasingly important role in developing Sarawak as an economically prosperous, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable destination by 2030. The sector’s involvement in achieving the Sarawak Government’s Post Covid-19 Development Goals is centred around delivering and optimising knowledge, innovation, and partnerships from business events.”
India, 14th January: Messe München India, a subsidiary of Messe München, has announced the postponement of its air cargo India, a biennial trade show and conference serving the air cargo industry. As is the case in many countries, India is experiencing a surge in omicron infections with the national 7-day average of more than 320,000 confirmed cases.
The show will now be held from 31st May to 2nd June 2022 at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai. Due to the current COVID restrictions, the organiser made the decision to postpone in close consultation with the exhibitors, sponsors, industry associations and partners. According to Messe München India, the 2022 edition of air cargo India will focus on the future trends, sustainability, latest innovations in the air cargo industry in a post-COVID world.
London, 17th January: Earlier this week, London-based media, data and information company, Haymarket Media Group, released its financial results for the financial year ending 30th June 2021. The group reported net profit of £16.5 million (US$22 million) – more than double the £8.3 million (US$11 million) recorded the year before.
The company’s revenue in the year was £147.7 million (US$204 million), representing year-on-year growth of 3.4%. Half of its revenues were generated in the U.S., 40% from the U.K. and 10% in the rest of the world. Over 90% of its revenues were from it medical media business. The company had a net cash of £37.9 million (US$52 million) as of 30th June 2021, up from £24.8 million (US$34 million) in the previous year.
Cologne, 13th January: Koelnmesse is the most recent organiser (in long and growing list) to report a painfully steep decline in revenues and profits as a result of the global pandemic which began more than two years ago.
In 2021, Koelnmesse organised 13 events at its venue in Cologne. The group also organised ten events abroad in eight different countries. Koelnmesse also hosted 11 so-called guest events at its venue in Germany.
Several events were held in purely digital form, while others were hybrid events. Preliminary revenues in 2021 are expected to be approximately €130 million (US$147 million), with a net loss around €100 million (US$113 million). The management cited a variety of key revenue sources including reasonably good results from the autumn trade fair and income from the use of the venue as a vaccination centre. The management also noted that cost-cutting measures prevented the loss from being even larger.
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 2022)
Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (MoTCE) aims to attract between 1.8 and 3.6 million international visitors this year – with a focus on quality and sustainable tourism. Last year, Indonesia recorded visitor arrivals of 1.5 million, which fell from 4.1 million arrivals in 2020.
Pony Ma is the founder of e-commerce giant Tencent. He is also one of the most low-profile and laconic billionaires in China. So it is interesting to hear in his leaked remarks to employees, he called Tencent an ordinary and replaceable company.
The government in Singapore has announced changes to the tax regime for casino operators. That may not please the bosses at LVS, but in a bit of good news, the government confirmed that the two integrated resorts will keep their monopoly status until 2030.
An interesting bit of detail on the holdings of key investors in the Indian online payment platform, Paytm – including Softbank, Alibaba Group and ANT Group.
Hong Kong, 13th January: In Hong Kong, even tighter restrictions have been put back in place following a very small uptick in the number of COVID infections. The seven-day average in Hong Kong is just 17. Despite that, the Hong Kong government has closed primary schools and banned dine-in at restaurants after 6pm.
This is largely seen as an attempt to follow Beijing’s zero-COVID strategy. Hong Kong’s border with China has been closed since February 2021 and over 150 countries are now listed as “high risk” by the Hong Kong government.
Singapore, 5th January: The Singaporean government has decided to ease COVID restrictions to allow business events of up to 1,000 people, although organisers must notify and receive prior permission from authorities. Organisers can host events of 50 people or less without needing to notify authorities.
COVID requirements remain significant. Restrictions include: masking of all participants; no food and beverage; participants must be seated or standing in fixed positions; participants are required to keep a distance of at least one metre from each other and need to remain divided into zones of 100 people each – with at least two metres between zones.
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