Singapore ranks 5th in the region (and 8th in the world), after Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Sydney. Photo Credit: Getty Images/wattanaphob
Singapore is one of the top ‘intellectual capitals’ in Asia Pacific, according to a report by GainingEdge, which ranks cities by the number of international association board members who live there.
As more advanced destinations look to brand their cities as “knowledge destinations with strong intellectual capital” rather than places with sound meeting infrastructure and unique destination appeal, the “Leveraging Intellectual Capital of Convention Destinations” report aims to provide a better understanding of their sector strengths, help them to build ambassador programmes, and to pursue a more targeted approach to bidding for events.
In determining the Top 50 Cities, GainingEdge focused on associations that hold conferences for more than 500 people.
With local thought leaders active in 332 international association boards, Singapore ranks 5th in the region (and 8th in the world), after Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Sydney.
Singapore is also one of the leading and most competitive convention destinations globally with a relatively high ‘harnessing ratio’ of 47.3%, which refers to how well a destination is able to leverage their local thought leaders to bring business and help brand it as being knowledge-based.
Interestingly, many of the Top 20 cities in the report have relatively poor harnessing ratios – for instance, the top ‘intellectual capital’ London only has a harnessing ratio of 16.6%, while Paris in the second place has 22.8%.
By ‘harnessing’ its volunteer leaders, these cities could potentially attract more international meetings.
As for Singapore, which is already positioned as one of the global associations hubs – ranking 2nd on the GainingEdge Competitive Index 2020 - the report recommends that the destination could consider advanced strategies to expand its presence within the international associations community.
Elsewhere in the region, cities with a strong correlation between number of international meetings hosted and local leaders include Bangkok (59.3%) and Kuala Lumpur (43.8%).
A high ratio suggests convention bureaux in these cities might be doing something right by engaging with local board members when bidding for events.
Jon Sivertson, GainingEdge’s CEO, said: “We see our Leveraging Intellectual Capital report as the foundation for building advanced convention development programmes for destinations. We can now see the absolute, and relative, strengths of destinations with regards to their harnessing of their resident intellectual capital.”
He added that this report will now provide the basis to convention destinations who wish to improve its business development and destination marketing activities.
“This service will help them to identify associations where they have influence they may not have known about. It also allows a destination to understand which of its actual key business sectors and scientific fields are best connected in global association leadership, and provides them with a focused, deliverable and measurable, approach to securing large meetings.”