China: More than one market

The thing I enjoy most about our International Dinners is the mix around the table. Companies already running events across several continents sit next to organisers weighing up their first move abroad, comes with practical and honest discussion.

This time the subject was China, and our guest was Margaret Ma Connolly, president of Informa Markets Asia. I've known Margaret for more than 20 years, and few people understand how that market has developed better than she does. What struck me over the course of the evening was how many of the assumptions international organisers formed ten or fifteen years ago simply no longer hold.

There isn't one China

The message that came through loudest was to stop treating China as a single market. Each region has its own industrial strengths, its own supply chains, its own customers. Shenzhen suits advanced manufacturing, robotics and drones. Beauty, food and hospitality naturally sit in Guangzhou. Chengdu covers the southwest. And Shanghai has become the place where international meets international - the city where exhibitors and buyers from around the world come to trade with each other, as well as China. Rather than starting with the biggest city, start with where your industry naturally belongs.

The competition between regions is real, too. There's a Chinese word for the ferocious internal rivalry that shapes the market: involution. We heard how even two districts of the same city will bid against each other to win an event, competing on investment, jobs and tax revenue. If you understand the system, that rivalry works in your favour - cities and provinces will compete to give you the best terms to launch.

Geo-adapt

I've never liked the phrase "geo-clone". It implies you can lift an event and drop it into a new territory unchanged, and everyone in this industry knows that's not how it works. The phrase I use instead is "geo-adapt", which Margaret first introduced to me some 15 years ago. Every market comes with different customer expectations and competitive pressures, and those differences should shape everything from content and pricing through to the visitor experience itself. The organisers who take time to understand a market before launching tend to be the ones who build something that lasts.

Local knowledge beats language skills

Someone at the table asked whether language remains the biggest barrier. Margaret's answer surprised a few people. Technology has largely solved communication, and the harder problem is understanding how business actually gets done locally - which varies not just between countries but between Chinese regions. That's why experienced partners matter so much: they bring relationships and cultural understanding you simply can't replicate from overseas. And those partnerships still run on trust.

A market that keeps moving

The infrastructure has to be seen to be believed. A venue with 200,000 square metres of indoor space is unremarkable in China, and the biggest now approach half a million. Utilisation is so high that a major show can tear down overnight and the next organiser is on the floor marking out stands at 1am. A 100,000 square metre event can build in two days. Licensing has been transformed too - in Shanghai there's now an online self-registration system, and unless your event name starts with the word "China", you don't need a licence at all.

But competition is fierce. There are more than 500 organisers operating in the market, and even the very largest holds only around a tenth of it. The new breed of competitor tends to come from outside the industry altogether: young, digital-only in their marketing, and moving at a speed that keeps everyone honest.

The relationship with the rest of the world is shifting as well. Chinese organisers are exporting successful event brands into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and Chinese exhibitors, helped by generous government subsidies for exhibiting abroad, now make up half the floor at some shows in Vietnam and the Gulf. Yes, that means new competition, but it also opens the door to partnerships and to attracting Chinese exhibitors and buyers to your own events.

And customer expectations are evolving just as quickly. At consumer-facing shows - food, beauty, pet, baby - as many as 80% of booths now run live streams from the stand, selling to online audiences in real time. We even heard of influencers taking booths with no product of their own, purely to stream their neighbours' inventory; one reportedly sold $2 million of jewellery in four days. Live commerce is very much part of the event in China now.

Final thoughts

China remains one of the world's most dynamic events markets, but succeeding there looks different than it did a decade ago. Understand the regional differences, invest in local knowledge, and stay curious as the market changes underneath you.

My thanks to Margaret for sharing her experience so openly, to everyone who contributed to the discussion, and to Cvent for sponsoring another excellent AEO International Dinner.