Michael Hart

A Taste for Truth in China
January 14, 2008

If you’ve ever been to an industry meeting in Asia, you know that they tend toward the staid. While last month’s IAEE Expo! Expo! included scantily-clad girls dancing on tables at the opening night reception, the average CEFCO meeting has its share of solemn, long-winded speeches by dignitaries in flowery Mandarin that must lose something in translation into English.

However, the fourth annual China Expo Forum for Intl. Cooperation (CEFCO 2008) going on right now in Chengdu, China, has something that comes as a surprise: On the first day of the conference, Jan. 15, it was the Western speakers who gushed over the success of the Chinese exhibition industry.

Manfred Wutzlhofer, chairman and CEO of Messe Munchen, said, “There is no shortage of growth, no shortage of venues and no shortage of exhibitions in the Chinese market.”

Paul Woodward, regional manger of UFI Asia/Pacific, said, “If 50 percent of the wealth will be in this part of the world by 2030 (an assertion made by one speaker), then this is the part of the world to be in.”

So it was left to the Chinese themselves to keep things in perspective.

In delivering CEFCO’s annual report on the state of the Chinese exhibition industry, Wang Jinzhen, vice chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of Intl. Trade, delivered the news that, with overall convention center occupancy hovering somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, – even with some 4,000 events in the country each year – an end must come to the venue building craze. He also pointed out that international exhibitors and attendees expected shows in China to be similar to those they visit in other parts of the world.

“While we are developing the C&E (convention and exhibition) industry in general,” Wang said, “we have to work to close the gap between us and our international counterparts.”

He was followed by Zheng Shijun, vice president of the China Intl. Exhibition Center Group, who observed that the assertion that 50 percent of the world’s wealth would be in China by 2030 “might be too optimistic.”

He said he expected 2008 to be a year when the Chinese economy cooled down a bit. If it does, “the exhibition industry will cool down a bit too," he added.

Hmmm. Is common sense the first sign of a maturing industry?

Posted by Michael Hart on January 14, 2008 | Comments (0)