BSG quoted in Tradeshow Week Asia article

Asian Destinations Bounce Back - 3/1/2010 - Tradeshow Week

Lisa Plummer does a nice overview of the rebound in Hong Kong and Macau in the latest edition of TradeShow Week. BSG is quoted along with UBM Asia's Jimé Essink, The Venetian's Wolfram Diener and Vertical Expo's Kenny Lo. Kenny will be speaking this week in Taiwan at the UFI Open Seminar in Asia on his success with themes which might once have been considered "difficult" in Asia.

BSG Chairman, Paul Woodward is quoted in the article:

Also hopeful about Macau’s exhibition future is Paul Woodward, chairman of Business Strategies Group, who said he believes one of the key ingredients to the region’s success will be to establish its own, distinct tradeshow identity.

“As the local market is very small, it has been challenging for Macau to build up a critical mass of visitors and buyers to most exhibitions,” he added. “Organizers are still fine-tuning their approach to (determine) the themes and event style that will work well in this market. Attempts simply to copy formats that have worked previously in Hong Kong or Las Vegas haven’t been so successful.”

BSG quoted in TradeShow Week article

TradeShow Week magazine in the US has put together a very thorough review of the possible impact of economic slowdown on the exhibitions business. Given the publciation's focus, it naturally concentrates on the US situation. It does, however, also report on the possible impact on China and Editor Michael Hart interview BSG's Paul Woodward, CMP Asia's Michael Duck and CIEC's Zheng Shijun for the article. Highlights:-

“We recorded 30-percent growth in 2006,” Woodward said. “It seems impossible to continue that in '07. If there is any slowdown, it's probably more of a maturing process. In other words, there might be 8- or 9-percent growth instead of 30 (percent).”

“If South China is going to get some slowdown in manufacturing because of a slowdown in orders from the U.S., then there could be something latent to care about,” Duck said.

The China Import & Export Fair, better known as the Canton Fair, takes place April 15-30 in Guangzhou, and sections of the China Sourcing Fair take place April 12-15 and April 20-23 at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong.

“Those are entirely driven by exports,” Woodward said. “The attendance figures there will be very interesting to watch.”

“It's still a little early to tell,” Woodward said. “We're just getting into the main trade fair season.”

But go ahead and read the whole piece. It's very interesting.