There are 30 chambers of commerce in Hong Kong. In organising events, sometimes the different chambers band together to fill the space and bring in the numbers.
They do this largely through InterCham, an umbrella group of all the international chambers of commerce and business associations in Hong Kong. Every year, we at InterCham organise six signature events, which are in total attended by over 3,000 professionals throughout the industries, nationalities, and age groups.
For instance, one of this year’s quarterly InterCham cocktails is held at the Dragon-I nightclub, and is jointly organised by the Austrian, Italian, and Korean chambers of commerce. All the other chambers promote it through their own database and arrangements – a very specific crowd of professionals from various industries is reached.
One large chamber claims its members employ 10 percent of the Hong Kong workforce. Running these cocktail events for over 10 years, InterCham celebrates its 43rd Young Professional cocktail this August, it has become a highly anticipated networking event in the city.
The recipe for such a well-attended event is the fact that all chambers promote this cocktail as a highlight and part of their own event schedule.
Above all, each chamber is only been given a certain quota of tickets which usually varies from 30 to 50, depending on the amount of registered chamber members. Once the chamber sends out the e-invitation to their members, tickets are typically gone within days.
The organising chamber takes a close look at the ticket sale and reshuffles unsold tickets from one chamber to another approximately one week prior to an event.
Especially in Hong Kong, people have the habit of registering for an event late. However, since no tickets are sold at the door and through implementing a strict no-ticket-no-entry policy, the chambers were able to make their members aware of such guidelines.
InterCham is a very unique platform for bringing together nationalities from various parts of the world, a wide range of age groups across the industries with great opportunities for people to socialise, develop business, and to make friends.
