REFORM IN CHINA’S EXHIBITION & MEETING INDUSTRY
WORKING TOWARD
Awakening an economic giant’s global reach faces both hurdles and opportunities. By Cliff Wallace, CFE
I began working in Hong Kong 32 years ago (1985) this coming April. I was then president and general manager of facility management of Louisiana and the Louisiana Superdome. Coincidentally, I was also the IAAM president at that time. The Superdome had been privatized in 1977 and I had the distinct
- was then GM of the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. - ment Group international after having expanded it quickly into other - ami and Nassau, Long Island. He set his global sights on Hong Kong and Sydney, both of which were planning new venues. management contract for the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition ultimately unsuccessful but a long-term relationship was begun be- tween me and executives in Hong Kong that would eventually reignite seven years later. expansion. The HK government insisted on someone with knowledge of the initial design to ensure a seamless extension in terms of oper- Center, who had also worked on the HKCEC planning team in 1985- 86). - in 1997 that more than doubled the size of a venue which was utilized for all but one of the six ceremonies handing over Hong Kong’s sover- eignty from the United Kingdom (after 156 years of rule) back to the People’s Republic of China. years the only true international venue in Asia. Having expanded a second time in 2009, it remains a premier venue in all design and operational aspects and continues to be the venue used as a model and benchmark for designing venues within mainland China. In 2005, I recommended to our parent company, NWS Holdings
14 Facility Manager Magazine
our expertise formally to Chinese cities developing new venues. Con- - in China and quickly selected Zhengzhou, a city in central China, to work with. Zhengzhou is the capital city of Henan province, at that time China’s largest province with nearly 100 million people. It is to- day the second largest province and Zhengzhou’s population is over 8 million. company and entered a 15-year management agreement with Zheng- zhou Government for the Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center. The ZZICEC has become one of the most success- ful second tier market venues in China and expansion of the venue’s nearly 1 million square feet of rentable space is planned soon. Also in 2006, NWSVM began an evaluation of a market in north- east China to determine the feasibility of a convention and exhibition venue in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province. That re- search evolved into a decision to do something very unique in China, - bition venue that would be an integral part of a mixed-use develop- ment including one of China’s largest retail shopping and art malls, - ground parking and direct connection to the city’s mass transit train system. This concept seemed prime for a city of 10 million people on Another unique factor was that a subsidiary property development
company of our parent company located in Shenyang would own - foundation work. and did so in September 2016 with the 7,000-plus delegate Annual National Planning Conference. This was a special “venue pre-open-
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