June 23, 2021 | By Bronwen Largier
Countries throughout Asia are continuing to have mixed pandemic experiences, which is impacting their events industry and infrastructure.
In Hong Kong, nearly 20 physical fairs were held in quarter two, attracting over a million attendees.
“We are delighted to see such a strong pick-up in demand for physical fairs,” said General Manager of MICE & Cruise at the Hong Kong Tourism Board Kenneth Wong,
“These events are a good demonstration of Hong Kong’s readiness to welcome business events of any scale, and also an encouraging sign for the exhibition industry that the physical show is invaluable and we are very much looking forward to a resumption of more trade fairs in the coming months.”
Meanwhile in Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre has been turned into a mass vaccination centre, able to deliver 8,000 vaccines a day as the country battles another COVID-19 wave which has Malaysia in lockdown until at least June 28. Well over 4,000 new cases continue to be reported daily.
“We fully embrace this opportunity to be involved in the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) and to be able to serve the city and the people of Kuala Lumpur,” said Alan Pryor, General Manager of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
“Having been given a chance to put on a rather different hat than usual, we are able to demonstrate the real value and strength purpose-built convention centres can contribute to collectively achieving national objectives. As the people’s centre, it gives us great national pride to be able to support PICK in every way possible.”
And Singapore also continues to battle an ongoing low-level resurgence of COVID-19 cases – reporting between nine and 20 locally acquired cases each day for the last week.
The country begun to gradually ease restrictions, although even in the last week there has been some tempering of the reopening plan as unlinked cases continue to emerge.
Events of up to 250 attendees have been able to resume with pre-event testing, but dining-in at food and beverage outlets has been pared back to two people per group from five, with music banned from restaurants to prevent people from talking too loudly and causing further spread of the virus.