What a glorious day in Macau! Yesterday I went for the 2008 UFI Open Seminar in Asia, a professional event business conference organized by UFI and managed by BSG Asia, held at the Venetian Macao. Everyone knows I once managed a trade show company in Hong Kong. So it was good for me to meet up many old friends, familiar faces, and to catch up with the professional peers.

Image by Dawvon

Venetian Resort is a beautiful venue. It was my first visit to Venetian after the grand opening. My friends from Venetian Macao, Michael McCarty and Eric Bello, told me that the booking of the exhibition venue ran very well. They believe that the exhibition markets in Hong Kong and Macau are more on collaboration instead of competition. Trade show organizers are organizing new edition of their events in Macau without cannibalizating the original one in Hong Kong.

I had a nice chat with Jimé Essink, the CEO of CMP, and Michael Duck, Senior VP of CMP. Both gentlemen have done extraordinary work to grow the CMP flagship jewellery show into one of the most important events in the world. We all agree on nowadays the event business is no longer cost-conscious. It is a brand-conscious business.

Same nice conversation with Norman Hannah, the Director of E.J. Krause & Associates, and James Fu, the General Manager of Hannover Fairs. The two leading organizers believe that quality is driving the market success more than quantity. I couldn’t agree more, this is very very true.

Norman also shared with me his insight about the market in India. He thinks, from a business person perspective, India has better legal system, compare to China, to support the investment of the trade show business. Clearly another hot spot is Dubai, which I have come across many discussions about the middle east business event market.

My fellow blogger Paul Woodward, the Principal of BSG Asia and the organizer of UFI Open Seminar in Asia, has always mentioned in his Asia Business Media Blog about “a right solution to making (the) events marketable, truly valuable and profitable for the organisers.” As a conference participant, I think the recent UFI Open Seminar has just demonstrated a correct recipe: great people mix, very interactive, fabulous location, for a good turnout rate.

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