THE MARKET for trade shows geared towards business event buyers and suppliers in Asia Pacific may have reached saturation point, but one Australia-based organiser considers the global “beast” that is IMEX to be the major contender.
Matt Pearce, CEO of Talk2Media & Events, the event management team behind the Asia-Pacific Incentive Meetings Event in Melbourne, sees the twice-yearly IMEX as AIME’s closest – but also friendliest – market rival.
“I’m not even going to say it’s frenemies, because we’re not enemies! We work very closely with IMEX… but not on anything in particular,” Pearce told MIX during AIME 2026.
Pearce and AIME event director Silke Calder have been attending major industry events over the past year, such as the UFI Global Congress Hong Kong, the IMEX shows in Frankfurt and Las Vegas, Connect Marketplace in Hong Kong and The Meetings Show in Singapore. Their presence is seen as evaluating the state of the market and the amount of interest the events receive from buyers and exhibitors.
There has been ample activity for them to observe. A post-pandemic race to re-establish business event market prominence by Hong Kong, along with intercity rivalry with Singapore, has seen two new shows open in both cities. This has come as TTG holds events in Bangkok and Shanghai, while Messe Berlin has MICE Show Asia andTravel Tech Asia co-located under ITB Asia in Singapore.
Informa Markets debuted Connect Marketplace in Hong Kong last year, but it was the launch of The Meetings Show Asia Pacific in Singapore in 2024 by Northstar Group that is known to have ruffled feathers in Melbourne where AIME is positioned each year as Asia Pacific’s largest and most influential conference and exhibition for the business events industry.
When asked about the prospect of more intense competition in the B2B MICE trade show segment, Pearce only pointed to the more established IMEX as the global model. He said relations between Talk2Media and IMEX Group, led by CEO Karina Bauer, were cordial.
“Karina was here [at AIME 2025] last year, and we go to IMEX. We’re welcome there, and their team are welcome here – because we are in Asia-Pac’ – they’re not,” Pearce said.
So we kind of complement each other. There are ways that we can do more together, and we’ll explore those, but nothing’s forced, and we’re certainly not trying to jump on IMEX. They’re a beast, and we’re not trying to [get their market], but where we can advance something together… then we should.”
Global exhibitions organiser RX, which runs IBTM World in Barcelona, made repeated attempts to bring an Asia Pacific edition of the show to Singapore, but was forced to postpone as the pandemic gripped. Hong Kong Tourism Board stepped in to bring the show to the city, but RX pulled the plug citing internal studies showing Chinese buyers more drawn to European incentive-travel products.
Northstar, now owned by Japan’s JTB, has co-located its Business Travel show alongside The Meetings Show in Singapore, while Informa is preparing for the return of Connect Marketplace in Hong Kong next month. Meanwhile, Messe Berlin is due to debut another B2B incentive travel event in Beijing later in the year.
Out of all the “MICE shows”, it was The Meetings Show that had been the source of most consternation with observers describing tensions between executives in Melbourne and Singapore as strained.
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Pearce said the AIME team was told to simply double down on what the show does best. “The trick with AIME for us has been the absolute curation of the event. It’s not a traditional trade show in the sense that we leave it to the buyers and sellers to get together. We curate that and that’s where the work is. And that, frankly, drives the success.”
An ingredient to that success, said Pearce, was in the technology behind AIME’s unique buyer-supplier appointments system in addition to a day of conferences and seminars curated by BEAM Experience.
“We’re not just leaving it to the serendipitous moments when people get together. We’re very aware of all of the players out there, and we respect them, but the best way for us to deal with it is to focus on what we do.”
