The show had been scheduled for March 19 and 20, 2025, at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong.
Organisers made no announcement of the cancellation although micenet understands the cancellation was communicated to stakeholders. The IBTM Asia Pacific website now redirects to IBTM World.
micenet was given a statement after contacting IBTM’s PR agency to understand more about the cancellation, although questions around whether plans to launch a show in Asia Pacific have been permanently shelved went unanswered.
“The continued global increase in the outbound meeting and business travel market, specifically from the APAC region and the coinciding growth in international representation at IBTM World (Barcelona November 2024), has led us to announce that IBTM APAC will no longer take place as scheduled in 2025,” IBTM’s statement said.
“Research findings highlighted that the APAC and especially Chinese outbound business travel planners are becoming increasingly adventurous in their choice of destination, and that spread of choice is at IBTM World, so we are encouraging all those who were scheduled to participate in the HK [Hong Kong] event, to join us in Barcelona and benefit from the global buyer audience that makes IBTM the annual choice of the meeting and business travel industry.”
RX has been trying to launch an Asia Pacific business events show since 2020. The pandemic forced the cancellation of the first attempt in April 2020, which was set for Singapore, and show dates in 2022 never came to fruition.
When IBTM Asia Pacific was still in the mix, the APAC business events trade show scene had suddenly become crowded in the first half of the year, with a show a month between February and April.
The long-running Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) in Melbourne in February was joined by The Meetings Show Asia Pacific in 2024, with a first show in Singapore in April and a second scheduled for April 2025.
With IBTM the last to the party, slotting in in March 2025, perhaps the market became oversaturated and seller marketing budgets were unable to stretch to a third show.
