Hong Kong to host major exhibition industry summit in 2025, marking latest large-scale event to return to city post-Covid
- The UFI Global Congress is the world’s largest gathering for exhibition industry, according to organiser
- Event was last held in Hong Kong in 2000; recent host cities include Muscat, Bangkok and Rotterdam
The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, organiser of the UFI Global Congress, on Tuesday said the event would take place at AsiaWorld-Expo.
It is the world’s largest gathering for the sector, according to the association which has 820 member organisations and 50,000 employees globally.
The event last year was held in Oman’s capital Muscat and attended by about 400 people and 60 speakers.
It was previously held in Hong Kong in 2000. Recent host cities include Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 2021, Bangkok in 2019 and St Petersburg in Russia in 2018. The event was held online in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Shanghai was the last Chinese city to host the event, back in 2016.
It will take place in the US city of Las Vegas in November this year, and Cologne, Germany, in 2024.
“The UFI Global Congress will conclude a multi-year tour through the world’s leading exhibition markets in 2025 … Hong Kong will take the global UFI community to Greater China,” Michael Duck, president of the association, said.
The announcement follows a decision by organisers of the RISE tech conference to bring the event back to Hong Kong in 2025, following multiple postponements.
To attract major events back to Hong Kong, the government announced the launch of a HK$1.4 billion “Incentive Scheme for Recurrent Exhibitions” last October for events held between July 1 this year and June 30, 2026.
Under the programme, organisers of recurrent exhibitions can receive incentives equivalent to up to 100 per cent of their venue rentals.
