Wallace blasts study on extra Hong Kong venue

HONG KONG Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre Managing director Mr Cliff Wallace has refuted an industry investigation concluding the city needs a new venue, saying the "study (is) methodologically and factually flawed". Mr Wallace - who has 27 years of international experience in the venue management industry - has released a paper on a 1999 study for the Hong Kong government's Economic Services Bureau proposing a new convention and exhibition venue at Hong Kong International Airport by 2005 or 2006. The study has caused division between the HKCEC and the Hong Kong Exhibition & Convention Organisers & Suppliers Association (HKECOSA), which endorsed the 1999 study. HKCEC resigned from HKECOSA and quit its executive committee. In his paper, Mr Wallace said further studies were "urgently" required and the interests both of Hong Kong and international exhibition organisers would be better served by ensuring they are conducted objectively. "I continue to call for internationally respectable studies that take a long-term strategic view of the needs for a further exhibition venue," he said. "Hong Kong's position as the trade fair and events capital of Asia demands nothing less." Mr Wallace also claimed where interviews with local organisers were concerned, the study was still methodologically flawed. His evaluation brief said such interviews appeared "limited in scope", were based on "a printed survey…that was difficult to understand" and the study should have used "more specific data" to generate forecasts and projections. Mr Wallace also criticised "the study's distorted use of occupancy data for the HKCEC. The misuse of factual data that I detect has led to a serious misrepresentation of the business case for a new venue".