SINGAPORE — ASEAN government ministers, major event organizers, trade association leaders and tourism board chiefs gathered from October 5-7 for the first time in person since the COVID-19 pandemic began at the Joint Leadership Summit (JLS). Their goal? To reboot the region’s business events sector.
Supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and co-organised by the Singapore Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers (SACEOS), the Association of Event Organisers (AEO), the Society for Independent Show Organisers (SISO) and UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, the Joint Leadership Summit at the Fullerton Hotel is the first international trade event with fully vaccinated attendees to be held in Singapore.
The 32 participants at the Joint Leadership Summit were a Who’s Who of the exhibition industry, including leaders from SACEOS, AEO, SISO and UFI, as well as representatives from the regional economies of Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and representatives from all independent exhibition organisers. They discussed the critical need to reopen inter- and intra-regional travel routes while ensuring the health and safety of travellers as core policy measures. Accordingly, the leaders also call on authorities to put in place clear policy initiatives and common operational protocols across the region to be calibrated for a COVID-endemic environment.
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Carina Bauer, AEO President and IMEX Group CEO, sees the Joint Leadership Summit as a valuable opportunity to share best practices with APAC partners. “We look forward to supporting our friends in the region in their efforts to reopen trade events and advocate for the opening of travel routes and the standardization of protocols,” said Bauer. “These are all essential steps in successfully leading the recovery of the trade events sector and the industries our events represent.”
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The meeting is also the launch point for the Asia CEO Summit @ Singapore, an annual dialogue for the regional exhibition industry, which will run for three years, from 2022 to 2024, in Singapore. “We have been working towards this event for over three years, and the global leaders attending the Joint Association Leadership Summit this week in Singapore, as well as others who were unable to attend, have put in tremendous effort to make this happen. This is an important moment,” said Hervé Sedky, Chairman of SISO and Chief Executive Officer of Emerald.
Contact Carina Bauer at carina.bauer@imexexhibitions.com ; Hervé Sedky at herve.sedky@emeraldx.com