{"id":2269,"date":"2013-05-02T17:33:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T21:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/?p=2269"},"modified":"2013-05-02T17:33:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T21:33:06","slug":"if-it%e2%80%99s-tuesday-this-must-be-%e2%80%a6-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/2013\/05\/02\/if-it%e2%80%99s-tuesday-this-must-be-%e2%80%a6-philadelphia\/","title":{"rendered":"If it\u2019s Tuesday, This Must be \u2026 Philadelphia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this at noon from Pennsylvania. But although it\u2019s bright and sunny outside, to my travel-weary self, it\u2019s actually midnight in Hong Kong \u2013 and I\u2019m more than ready for bed. I\u2019m topsy-turvy because I\u2019ve just returned from a week-long business trip to attend the Hong Kong Gifts & Premiums Show, 8,000 miles away and 12 hours ahead of the East Coast where I live.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The show is one of the largest in the world for promotional products, attracting over 4,000 exhibitors from 37 countries. Lucky for me, I got to attend alongside veterans like Supplier Global Resource<\/em>\u2122<\/sup> editor Michele Bell, publisher Rich Fairfield and Ed Koehler, VP and associate publisher of magazines and catalogs. We were joined during part of the trip by ASI\u2019s China-based SGR<\/em> sales team (pictured with us at right: Melar Wang, Tony Tian, Alan Lee and Tammy Jing), who travel throughout Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong selling our new SGR <\/em>memberships.<\/p>\n

The new, strictly exclusive membership connects non-North American manufacturers and agents with ASI\u2019s North American suppliers. During the show, we celebrated at a cocktail party for ASI\u00ae<\/sup> suppliers that was sponsored and attended by SGR<\/em> members who are Hong Kong and Chinese manufacturers. And, as much as we love our distributors, ASI believes they are most successful by sourcing from trusted ASI suppliers, so we may as well have hung a \u201cNo Distributors Allowed\u201d sign outside the reception. (I wish I had a photo of Rich shooing two distributors away who wanted to crash our event!)\"\"<\/p>\n

As reported on our website, the show\u2019s traffic was noticeably slower than in previous years, despite growth in the Hong Kong gift market of 6% in 2012. Still, the show floor was huge, crowded and packed with a ton of Bluetooth-capable items, tech gadgets, smartphone accessories and eco-friendly products.<\/p>\n

In the photos, you can see one of the many colorful displays from the show, along with Hong Kong Harbor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve traveled to Asia a number of times, and it\u2019s always equally strange and thrilling. While I decided against trying the still-wiggling shrimp served up at one of our dinners, I gladly seized the chance to visit a local friend of an ASI member at his art-filled home, situated on Hong Kong island with a spectacular view of the South China Sea. He\u2019s 72 \u2013 and recently became a new father! (Maybe it\u2019s the shrimp?)\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Hong Kong, which is a \u201cspecial administrative region\u201d of the People\u2019s Republic of China, is on China\u2019s south coast, bordered by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea. The city is 426 square miles and home to about 7 million people. To put that into perspective, New York City (including all the boroughs) is 469 square miles and has 8.2 million residents.<\/p>\n

And, while I\u2019m always happy to explore the far corners of the Earth, there really is no place like home and garden. (I\u2019m throwing a pic from my garden up in this blog for fun.) Happily, my next trip is less than 100 miles away \u2013 to our New York show<\/a>, taking place Wednesday and Thursday at the Javits Convention Center, and featuring a special keynote by TLC\u2019s \u201cCake Boss<\/a>,\u201d Buddy Valastro Jr., who\u2019s dishing up business advice and<\/em> handing out cake samples from Carlo\u2019s famous Hoboken bakery.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve done business in Asia, or attended the Hong Kong show, please let me know what you experienced by posting a comment or e-mailing me here<\/a>. I\u2019m also on Twitter<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

P.S. If you’re wondering about the blog title, it’s a play on the 1969 film, “If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium,” about a 9-country, 18-day bus trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this at noon from Pennsylvania. But although it\u2019s bright and sunny outside, to my travel-weary self, it\u2019s actually midnight in Hong Kong \u2013 and I\u2019m more than ready for bed. I\u2019m topsy-turvy because I\u2019ve just returned from a week-long business trip to attend the Hong Kong Gifts & Premiums Show, 8,000 miles away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-members","category-news-about-asi","category-using-ad-specialties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2278,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions\/2278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}