Weekly Newsletter
Melbourne, 10th March: The Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre (MCEC) has essentially been close since COVID-19 restrictions came into effect in early 2020. The venue, however, is now cleared to return to hosting physical exhibitions. The first will be the Gift & Lifestyle Fair running from 20th to 22nd March.
Read MoreWe need this to work and we need something similar to be put in place globally. The Chinese Government is testing digital passports which can be downloaded via WeChat.
And more initiatives like this are needed! Singapore Airlines will become the first airline to trial the IATA Travel Pass app beginning next week. The digital health verification app has been under development since last year. SIA will conduct a two-week trial of the app between March 15-28 for passengers travelling from Singapore to London.
This is an interesting initiative. A group of event organisers in Hangzhou, including EastBest (also known as Shanghai Donghao Lansheng), have formed a new company to promote Hangzhou as a destination for business events.
This article seems a bit optimistic given the restrictions currently in place in Singapore, and it is assumed that these are essentially domestic events given that the city-state’s borders are edging slowly towards a very tentative opening.
This annual observance is a platform to promote the value created by physical exhibitions. This year, the message will likely be focused on the importance of exhibitions in jump-starting economic activity after the pandemic.
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Read MoreLas Vegas, 3rd March: This week, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced plans to sell The Venetian, its flagship Strip resort, and the rest of its Las Vegas properties. The properties will be sold to private equity group Apollo Global Management Inc. and real estate investor Vici Properties Inc. for US$6.25 billion.
Read MoreMalaysia, 1st March: The Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers (MACEOS) welcomed the decision of the Malaysian government allowing meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions to be held under the Movement Control Order (MCO) areas as of 5th March. Ongoing restrictions include a limited capacity of 25% and a maximum of 250 people.
Read MoreAustralia, 24th February: The Australian federal government has opened applications for business events in Western Australia under its A$50 million (US$39 million) Business Events Grants Program.
Read MoreMacau, 26th February: Last week, Macau’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released its MICE statistics for the full year of 2020. A total of 362 MICE events were held in Macau during the year. That is 1,174 events less than the previous year. The total number of participants and attendees dropped 55%, down to about 914,000. Although this is a very substantial drop, a 55% decline in MICE participants in 2020 makes Macau one of the better performing markets last year.
Read MoreManila, 24th February: Convention centres and other event venues in Metro Manila previously under the general community quarantine (GCQ) are now allowed to reopen, after several months of closure. Ballrooms, function rooms and venues within hotels, restaurants and mall atriums in GCQ areas are now allowed to reopen for “essential” meetings and events.
Read MoreA group of large international tourism companies in Thailand have launched a campaign to re-open the country’s borders as of 1st July. The #OpenThailandSafely campaign was launched this week with the support of 16 companies. They cite five reasons justifying the date 1st July including the progress of the country’s vaccination programme.
The industry is somewhat divided on this. Some think that the pandemic has changed business events and we are never going back. Others look to markets that have restarted, such as China, and expect that the global industry will follow that same path. This Forbes columnist falls into the “bounce back to business as usual” camp.
But surely someone will figure this out. The survival of quite a few industries and millions of jobs are relying on that. Web-in-Travel’s Yeoh Siew Hoon has a good summary of where we stand today.
Tiny Singapore has been throwing billions of dollars at key sectors of its economy. This week it was aviation’s turn. Singapore’s Ministry of Transport will spend US$660 million to support the country’s aviation sector, as part of its 2021 Budget.
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Read MoreJapan, 17th February: Messe Frankfurt has organised its first physical event in 2021 in Japan. Beautyworld Japan Fukuoka, while fully complying with hygiene and safety standards, ran from 8th to 9th February. The show was held at Fukuoka Kokusai Center. A total of 122 exhibitors showcased their products and services at the show and the event attracted over 3,800 trade visitors.
Read MoreJapan, 23rd February: The Japanese government has unveiled a new programme designed to provide up to ¥25 million (US$240,000) for venues and organisers cancelling or postpone events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Read MoreBeijing, 17th February: Last week, Baidu, the leading search engine in China, released its financial results for the year ended 31st December 2020. Revenues in the year were US$16 billion, flat compared with the previous year.
The company’s net income in the year was US$3.4 billion, which represents an increase nine times increase compared with the previous financial year. Diluted earnings per share in 2020 were RMB 64.98 (US$9.96).
Cologne, 9th February: Koelnmesse, a large German international exhibition organiser, released its result for the financial year 2020. The company generated revenues of about €95 million (US$117 million) in the year and it incurred a loss of €115 million (US$141 million).
Read MoreMunich, 9th February: Germany-based Messe München reported projected revenues of €95 million in 2020, which is 70% below its original target, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Messe München cancelled more than 20 major events during the year.
Read MoreHong Kong has had a rough go of it with the 2019 protests and then straight into the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent government budget gave Hong Kong Tourism Board an addition US$120 million to bring the tourists back. It will be worth watching to see what they do with all that cash.
This could translate into a first mover advantage for the Thai tourism sector and its overall economy and it could push other Asian governments to consider a similar move. Mitigate the risks and restart economic activity has to be the way forward.
In addition to the above article, it also appears that Thailand is thinking about business events. TCEB organised the Thailand Virtual MICE Expo this week. In that event, it was stated that Thai officials are close to removing quarantine requirements for vaccinated visitors to business events in Phuket – which could serve as a test case for the rest of the country.
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Read MoreHong Kong, 8th February: The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) hosted its first trade exhibition since the fourth wave of COVID-19 began in late November 2020. Hong Kong International Dental Expo and Symposium (HKIDEAS) ran from 22nd to 24th January, with an average daily attendance of over 3,000 dental professionals.
HKIDEAS, held annually at the HKCEC, postponed its August 2020 version due to the pandemic. In addition to the exhibition, HKIDEAS also featured 23 parallel sessions and four workshops, which incorporated live video conferencing. Industry professionals from Hong Kong, China, the U.K., USA, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Lebanon attended the event, sharing the latest clinical insights and market trends.
Paris, 4th February: Earlier this month, UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, released an updated COVID-19 damage assessment for the global exhibition and trade show industry. Based on the results of the latest edition of its UFI Global Exhibition Barometer, revenues for the global exhibition industry in 2020 dropped 68% compared with 2019.
It is estimated that more than €200 billion (US$224 billion) of total exhibition-related output was lost in 2020, affecting 2.4 million full-time jobs. About €330 billion (US$370 billion) of business volume was lost from exhibiting companies using face-to-face events to generate business.
London, 11th February: Last week, RELX Group plc, parent company of Reed Exhibitions, released its financial results for 2020. Underlying revenues in RELX’s exhibition business dropped 69% to £362 million (US$493 million).
The underlying operating loss for the year was £164 million (US$224 million). According to the company, its exhibition business had a good start to the year, however by mid-March the COVID-19 pandemic closed many exhibition venues globally.
Outside of Asia, no significant face-to-face events have taken place since then. The company has been able to hold physical events in China since June 2020, and in Japan beginning in August. Some events in other countries began in the second half of the year.
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