What is next for the events industry in Asia?

This post was done in collaboration with Hubilo.

When the pandemic hit, the world was forced to go online, and one of the hardest hit industries during that difficult year was the events space. Fast-forward to today as markets start to open up, the event industry seems cautiously optimistic in its outlook towards holding physical events, along with the ongoing hosting of virtual events.

In fact, according to Northstar Meetings Group's latest PULSE Survey conducted from 18 February 2021 to 2 March 2021, 81% of meeting planners in the UK aim to hold their next in-person event sometime this year.

However, some caution remains. In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, SVP of global sales and success at Hubilo, Greg Volm, said the receptiveness to in-person or virtual events varies from country to country.

As of mid-2020, Singapore came in second in terms of the internet penetration rate within the Southeast Asian region, with users spending an average time of 8.07 hours on the internet each day. Singapore is also second in the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2020 after the United States, and first in the Asia Pacific region.

“Considering this, and the fact that Asia has always been a destination for big conferences, and with the region being a primarily mobile-first world, transitioning and accepting the virtual world has been a much smoother process in the region than in the West,” Volm said. 

Naturally, audiences wanted more during the pandemic, which opened the door for a company such as Hubilo to bring in that transition.

“With event technology platforms such as ours bridging the travel, accessibility and communication gap, we are currently looking at how we can better sync the advancement of Singapore and the West to other regions globally,” he said.

While Hubilo continues to sync the advancement of Asia to the West, the company is also anchoring itself in the region by strengthening its footprint in Asia Pacific, EMEA, and the US. Furthermore, it is also expanding its partner network and establishing multichannel go-to-market teams across the globe.

However, despite its ambitions, Volm said what remains a priority for the company now is to deliver the “best executed and most engaging events in the market”.

With more than 20 years of knowledge, Volm’s forte includes scaling multi-channel sales and success, along with in-depth expertise in partnering and spearheading rapidly moving and high-growth companies. 

Before joining Hubilo, he worked in roles such as director of sales at Wipro; senior director of sales at Zendesk; vice-president of sales with Xero and InsideView; and senior vice-president of customer experience and operations at Prezi.

Fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for some great SaaS companies before they became household names, Volm said he has always strived to surround himself with purpose-driven people – and he has found that at Hubilo.

“I have always been enamoured with technology that creates human connections and has an enormous outreach.”

We speak to Volm about some of the trends he is seeing in the region and what clients are now asking more of.

Over the past year, the global events landscape has changed drastically. What are some of the questions clients are asking you more often these days?

As the events industry moves towards hybrid engagement models in a post-pandemic/endemic world – the industry’s size which was valued at US$1,135.4 billion in 2019 – is expected to reach US$1,552.9 billion by 2028, registering a CAGR of 11.2% from 2021 to 2028.

The Asia Pacific region will exhibit the highest CAGR of 13.3% during 2021-2028, according to Allied Market Research. Hence, we continue to address queries and give solutions around these common themes:

• How do I execute a great hybrid or virtual experience?
• How do I keep my attendees engaged in a virtual world?
• How do I marry the in-person and virtual worlds together?
• How do we capitalise on ROI in a hybrid format?
• What are the GTM strategies for virtual and hybrid?

How are you shaping the team to future-proof your clients’ goals?

In the past, travel and accommodation costs, the cost for speakers, diverse cultures, engagement, networking and branding opportunities were some key concerns.

At Hubilo, we have considered all these challenges to build a platform that helps create customised solutions. We have divided our internal team into different segments: the first is our customer success team that continuously picks up learnings from every event and ensures they are implemented rapidly, usually before the next event. Second, we have a core technology team in place that is completely focused on the product and is constantly working on improvements and advancements.

The third team we are building out is our research and development team, which will conduct a series of experiments to ensure Hubilo is building a completely future-proof platform.

What does your view of the event world look like in the future?

The ROI of adding a virtual component to every event is hard to argue right now, but we are scratching the surface on attendee engagement right now, virtual and in-person, with more immersive experiences which are already generating a 10x value. 

More personalisation is coming and I think the innovation that will soon be integrated will foster a human connection between virtual and in-person attendees and will fundamentally reimagine what an event can be or become.

How can platforms such as Hubilo provide a direct conversion from marketing to sales for your clients?

It is a given that virtual and hybrid events bring essential flexibility by helping you save on costs; increasing your audience reach irrespective of the geographies; providing numerous branding opportunities for the exhibitors and organisers; capitalising on objectives; and overall helping to cultivate maximum event ROI. 

These events also have a longer shelf-life as you can achieve multiple returns from the same event. Utilising content and data you receive from every event to activate targeted campaigns will help every event marketer drive more ROI than is possible with just in-person events.

Today, event platforms offer you white-glove client success teams that lend support before, during and post the event to ensure complete event success. Keeping these in mind, you can strategise the best marketing to sales approach for your event. 

We have already witnessed extensive commerce on our platform; in over a year, almost US$400 million worth of opportunities have been created, and 200,000 connections have been made between attendees which have led to business transactions.