Asia Comment
Crouching tigers –
hidden dragons
hat can we
expect from
2019 in
South
East Asia? I “quote” the
name of the famous movie
Crouching Tigers – Hidden
Dragons because it nicely
encapsulates how I would
describe the current
situation.
Although many global
economies are likely to dip sharply
in 2019, we will likely continue to see
strong stability in South East Asia and a GDP
range between 2.5% and 7% for Indonesia/
Philippines.
Economically, these markets should
pose no dangers.
Politically, we see elections coming
up in Thailand and Indonesia, but
surprises from these two regional
powers are unlikely. With stable political
and economic foundations for the MICE
industry in these countries, we will witnesses
new launches in Thailand, with shows like Label by
Tarsus and Non-Woven by EJ Kraus to be launched in May this year,
as well as CEBIT by Hanover and Impact.
There has been some M&A activity with energy shows and
Impact’s pet show in Thailand was taken over by a Chinese
organiser.
Vietnam continues to offer just limited support for international
organisers and most large trade shows have strong government or
association involvement.
It is a different picture in the Philippines where the square
metres taken by exhibitors seem to grow and grow. The two major
exhibition centres in Manila – SMX and WorldTrade – have a high
occupancy rate and few vacancies.
In the Philippines and Tarsus/Informa/UBM have all shown that
international organisers can do very well there with square metre
prices still low.
With the Philippines economy growing strongly, MICE events can
be very successful due to strong demand. The main problem remains
– not enough venue space.
w w w.exhibitionworld.co.uk
Björn Kempe,
CEO ExposAsia
Indonesia, on the contrary,
has enough exhibition space
especially in Jakarta with ICE
and JIExpo Kemayoran. Both
venues report strong growth,
especially from domestic
organisers who have been
launching new shows. These
domestic organisers (mostly
family run) will probably,
however, be forced into opening up
their exhibitions to international players.
So far German players are not yet
present in large numbers in Indonesia, while
UK players are reportedly eager to catch some big
fish in a country where there are certainly plenty
of big fish waiting, in the shape of shows
organised by Peraga, Debindo, KristaMedia.
In Malaysia the M&A market remains
quiet beside and, again, the domestic
market is small and heavily reliant on
international partners.
In Singapore Deutsche Messe has
launched Automation Singapore in 2018
quiet successfully and Spheres and Singex
are in full consolidation mode so we can expect that organisers will
focus on their main business and probably a few more confexes will
be added to the schedule on the island state.
Over in China more medium and smaller
sized organisers are expected to sell out to
international organisers – we have seen
the Laser Expo M&A by Deutsche Messe
in Shenzhen. Such kinds of acquisitions
look set to continue in 2019.
There are ‘crouching tigers’ to
be found in China and ‘hidden
dragons’ in many nations across
South East Asia.
It makes for a situation
that will lead to a good
year for international and
domestic organisers, with a
good number of mid and small
size M&As.
Issue 1 2019
39