2022 has been a challenging year for the conference and events industry globally but for the most part things having been looking up. However for China things have got worse. Our Partner, Lisa Xu shares her perspectives with us while her country and city Shanghai has been in complete lock down since the end of March.

How did 2022 compare to 2020 and 2021?

Indeed, we were quite successful 2020 and 2021 despite the COVID outbreak. The pandemic has brought many changes. Our clients' marketing strategy has shifted and we have responded to this with new services and products.

Are domestic conferences still going ahead virtually?

Before this strict lock down China’s largest and most well-known events such as CIIE, WAIC, CIIF, Shanghai Marathon went ahead. Now many large events are being re-organized virtually during this strict lock down.

Are there any international meetings taking place?

Before the lock down, there were still international events, congresses and meetings and virtual team buildings going on. These ranged from 10 to 200,000 delegates with some taking place on all 5 continents. With so many virtual and hybrid events taking place in China, connections, stability and firewall issues have been improved greatly since 2020. At East Star, we successfully organized the ICME Annual Conference last year in Shanghai, with 1200 delegates on site and 10,000 delegates online from 30 countries and 5 continents. Besides this, we also successfully organized WAIC, DHR and WFCS.

Can you still find new opportunities for East Star in the current challenging circumstances?

There are obviously some new opportunities to explore, clients are turning more and more to digital solutions. We are grateful to our involvement in international networks like INCON which allowed us to have a broader vision and global connections. From a business point of view, we had chance to restructure our teams and diversified our business units at very beginning of the outbreak.

We developed our own branded Expo for HR technology, which was a platform that united more than 16,000 HR professionals.

We also established a new team called X-clusive which focuses on digital and visualized content. No matter how important and powerful people meeting in person is, digital and hybrid has become a very important form of meeting and communication. We are also introducing the most advanced virtual technologies, such as the Metaverse concept, AR, VR and MR and using them to empower our clients’ events and to achieve the goals beyond their expectations.

Have you diversified to new business areas?

Some of the venues that belong to our group have been used as quarantine centers, and part of our team volunteered to be part of taskforces bringing our resources and expertise in production, construction and hospitality.

Last year we started to tailor local city-walks and selling packages to local/expat individuals with stronger historical and cultural elements. With hundreds and thousands of repeat visits, we also collected valuable feedback and experience on our hospitality and incentive products. During these two lock down months, we had virtual tours every weekend, and live broadcasting of our lifestyle collections (cooking class, make-up demos, etc) every Wednesday.

When the entire city was almost paralyzed, there was also a huge demand from expats. We supported many of our clients with airline reservations and point to point limo transfer service etc.

How are things for your teams?

All of our teams are quarantined at home. We are connected by digital means. We have 2-3 internal trainings per week and webinars to keep our teams up to speed on changes to our industry. We are using this time wisely to invest in better positioning our services on the international market so we are ready once quarantine is lifted. We regularly organize virtual presentations to promote our products and sustain our client relationships.

What is the impact on wider Chinese industries?

We have seen the rise and fall of different industries, including real estate, automobile and technology companies to name but a few.

What is the current outlook for in person conferences and events?

Most of our projects have been postponed and even cancelled. The majority of countries in our region are going back to normal. For instance in Singapore, social distancing restrictions have been eased. We see leads swarming to Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. At the moment, my team and I pray for peace and health and the removal of all travel barriers, hopefully by 2023.

Lock Down Perspectives from Shanghai