Singapore’s Event Exclusivity Strategy in ASEAN: Aggregating Regional Demand in the Digital Economy

Abstract

This paper examines Singapore's use of exclusivity of international concerts to aggregate regional economic demand in the ASEAN digital economy through a qualitative descriptive analysis of secondary data thematically analysed using concepts of platform economy and network effects. The results suggest that exclusivity is a deliberate means of aggregating cross-border demand and creating spillovers in events-related industries like tourism and digital transactions, enabling Singapore to act as both an event host and a platform hub that controls regional event circulation. Event exclusivity is found to be a form of event-led economic aggregation that enhances network centrality and lock-in, resulting in uneven economic development in ASEAN, while event-based economic gatekeeping is also introduced as a new dimension of digital political economy.