As I gaze into my crystal ball and call on the ancient spirits to enlighten me what the future holds for the events industry in Asia… I see,., orange, the color orange no not traffic cones and warning signs this is the shades of sunrise.. A fiery ball seeping over the horizon. A new day, a nativity for the industry in Asia…
Although Asia slowed down economically over the past two years we luckily were not hit as hard as our western counterparts. Our events moved along with cancellations in some industries (finance) but a steady flow in others (luxury). Our biggest concern was perception and making sure the head office in New York (and the public) didn’t see our events as wasteful. Last year the Hong Kong government snapped into action and started doling out cash from the “Mega-Events” fund and set up Meeting Events Hong Kong ‘MEHK’ to help promote the MICE industry. China meanwhile was full steam ahead with Shanghai Expo and Asian Games leading the way. All this action in the industry in Asia has shown a couple of things, one we are on the cutting edge when it comes to using technology and structure to create incredible, memorable and beautiful event spaces second there is a great need to study the management side to create seamless flow from the vision to the execution of the event.
For the event industry in Asia this year I see event professionals and event thinkers seeing the benefit of coming together to study and learn from each other. Asian focused event conferences will begin to find recognition. Lectures from experienced event professionals for other event professionals will begin to take hold these lectures will no longer solely be in the domain of the west and will have real bearing on how we work in Asia. The expos will realize that in order to increase their bottom line they will need to increase the goodwill by adding the not so profitable education of the conference side.
In the coming year we will see more of the experts like Corbin Ball (http://www.corbinball.com), Lara McCulloch –Carter (www.ready2spark.com) and Dr. Joe Goldblatt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Goldblatt) touring Asia sharing their knowledge and expertise on how to create better events.
…well let’s hope anyway 😉
