The jury is still out on whether Hong Kong's Asian Aerospace - organised by our sister company Reed Exhibitions - can become the definitive gateway show for the huge Chinese market. On the surface, it has everything going for it. Its location, Hong Kong, is easy to get to and visitor friendly. It's timing - now switched from September to March - puts it 11 months away from the Singapore air show, successor to the "old" Asian Aerospace, which Reed ran in the southern Asian island state for many years until 2006.
The trouble for Reed is that, while Singapore has continued to be the must-attend show for defence exhibitors keen to sell into the region's burgeoning military market, Asian Aerospace must compete with two other Chinese shows for the civil business. It makes much of its independence - the other Chinese shows are run by arms of local government so there is an element of domestic exhibitors "having" to attend. No one is at Hong Kong, says Asian Aerospace, who does not want to be there.
I will be at the show next week, along with several colleagues, to produce another of our multimedia extravaganzas, with three issues of Flight Daily News produced on site for visitors, plus two editions of our interactive daily. We will also be covering the show in words, pictures and video on flightglobal.com itself, as well as on Twitter. And our 15 March issue of Flight International will have a full report on the event. Catch all our coverage here http://www.flightglobal.com/air-shows/Asian-Aerospace/
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