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Majority of events will make their debut in Southeast Asia or Asia, attracting thousands of visitors to the city.
Singapore – Singapore has successfully secured eight large congresses and tradeshows in the first half of this year. These are estimated to bring in an additional 20,000 visitors to the city and further augment its current strong line-up of business events. From world congresses to regional exhibitions and conferences, most of these events will be taking place for the first time in Southeast Asia or Asia, further cementing Singapore’s position as one of the world’s top business events destination.
Said Ms Melissa Ow, Deputy Chief Executive, Singapore Tourism Board, “These event wins attest to Singapore’s strength as a trusted partner to deliver event success. Beyond our infrastructure and empowering business environment, Singapore’s attractiveness as a business events destination is bolstered by our distinctive multi-cultural lifestyle experiences and the dedication and support of our local associations and industry partners. We look forward to welcoming more event owners and business travellers to Singapore to network, collaborate, and grow their business events to new heights.“
World congresses testament to Singapore as thought leader
Over the past year, Singapore has won bids to host five major world congresses from the medical and industrial solutions sectors.
Recognised as Asia’s leading medical hub for research and healthcare, Singapore will soon welcome three prominent medical congresses set to take place for the first time in Southeast Asia. Singapore was recently confirmed as the host city for the International Urogynecological Association (IUGA) Annual Meeting in 2021, which will attract 1,200 visiting physicians and healthcare professionals to discuss the latest trends on urogynecological research and patient care.
The following year, Singapore will host the 20th International Congress of Endocrinology (ICE). The ICE 2022 will gather more than 4,000 endocrinologists from over 70 countries to exchange insights on advances in basic and clinical endocrinology practice. Further down the road, the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA) in 2024 will welcome 8,000 anaesthesiologists from around the world to discuss areas of anaesthesia, pain medicine and intensive care.
Associate Professor Chan Yew Weng, Chairman of the WCA 2024 Bid Committee and winner of the 2017 Singapore Tourism Awards’ Best Business Event Champion said, “I was inspired when I attended my first World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA) in 1996, and thus wanted to share my passion for anaesthesiology and do something impactful for this field in Singapore. Having successfully secured the WCA for Singapore after several attempts, I look forward to fulfilling this dream of hosting it here in 2024. Singapore is rapidly growing to be a thought leader in the medical sector in personalised medicine and big data analytics, and I believe the knowledge and insights shared during this congress will further advance anaesthesia care in Singapore and around the world.” Professor Chan is also a Senior Consultant in the Department of Anaesthesiology at the Singapore General Hospital.
The industrial solutions sector is also going from strength to strength with two world congresses making their first forays into Southeast Asia. The world’s largest technical professional association, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), will be bringing engineers, computer scientists and allied professionals to the city state for two of its flagship events. In 2020, the 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON) on industrial and manufacturing theory and applications is expected to receive around 1,300 overseas attendees, while the world’s most comprehensive technical conference on signal processing and applications, the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), is expected to host around 2,000 international industry professionals in 2022.
A vibrant line-up of headliner tradeshows
On the exhibitions and conferences front, Singapore has also newly secured various significant tradeshows this year, with themes ranging from travel and technology to F&B.
2018 will see two headliner events take place for the first time in Singapore. Making its debut from 21 to 24 May 2018 at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre is the International Luxury Travel Mart (ILTM) Asia-Pacific. An evolution of ILTM Asia which is traditionally held in China, the tradeshow aims to reach out to the growing luxury travel market in Asia Pacific and is expected to receive around 1,400 visitors.
In July 2018, Campus Party – the world’s largest technology-based festival – will also come to Asia for the first time. Set to take place at the Singapore Expo, Campus Party has already held more than 60 editions across Europe, Latin America and America, featuring speakers and luminaries such as Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak and Paulo Coelho. Campus Party Singapore will present a wide range of activities, talks, competitions and workshops for 72 hours straight (round-the-clock for three consecutive days), and is expected to bring in around 1,000 visitors to Singapore.
Said Project Director of Campus Party, Daniel Ch’ng, “SingEX is extremely honoured to launch Campus Party in Singapore. The objectives are aligned with the nation’s drive for greater innovation and creativity to solve real-world problems. With access to state-of-the art conference facilities and excellent digital connectivity, Singapore makes a strategic location for the first Asian Campus Party. And we are looking forward to engaging with diverse groups of people, institutions, businesses, universities and communities to work together so that we can create possibilities to change the world.“
This week, Singapore also saw the return of the Tea & Coffee World Cup, which held its last edition here in 2013. The only international tradeshow to feature the entire supply chain of the tea and coffee industries, the 22nd edition of the annual Tea & Coffee World Cup introduced a new component – cocoa. The symposium and exhibition took place at the Singapore EXPO from 26 to 28 September, and is expected to have received over 2,000 coffee, cocoa and tea industry experts and enthusiasts worldwide.
Consistently recognised as a leading international meetings city
2017 sees Singapore maintain its international standing as the leading business events destination in Asia Pacific once again. The city state was crowned 2016’s top international association meetings city in Asia-Pacific and Middle East by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) for the 15th year running. It was also named the second “Top International Meeting City” of 2016 by the Union of International Associations (UIA).
Angelos is the news editor for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). His role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy. He currently studies Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens.
