Art Basel Art Basel co-directors Annette Schönholzer and Marc Spiegler

This year’s Hong Kong International Art Fair is a week away, but its organizers are already focused on 2013.

That’s when the event — Asia’s biggest and most lucrative art fair — will be reborn as the Hong Kong edition of Art Basel. It will be held May 23 to 26 and remain at the city’s convention center.

Associated Press

Paul McCarthy’s ‘Daddies Tamato Ketchup Inflatable 2007′ at the entrance to the Hong Kong International Art Fair in 2011.

Marc Spiegler, co-director of Art Basel and sister event Art Basel Miami Beach, the biggest art fair in the U.S., said there will be “significant differences from this year” but declined to share details. MCH Group, which owns both Art Basel fairs, bought a 60% stake in Hong Kong’s fair last May.

Exhibitors, however, will get some idea of what’s changing on June 11, when Basel releases information on the selection committee and makes its 2013 applications available.

Among galleries’ concerns: that Art Basel Hong Kong will feature the same names that pop up in the U.S. and Europe. That won’t happen, Mr. Spiegler said.

“Every gallery has to apply every time to every show,” he said. “We want [to avoid] shows that all look the same. There will never be a get-in-once, get-in-three times concept, though that would make our lives simpler.”

Magnus Renfrew, the Hong Kong art fair director who is now Art Basel’s director in Asia, said the fair is committed to keeping a 50-50 split between Western and Asian (which they define as including the entire Asia-Pacific region as well as the Middle East and Turkey) galleries.

WOW Productions - Magnus Renfrew

What patrons can expect is to see top-selling Asian artists and galleries appear in Miami and Basel, similar to Art Basel Miami, which raised the profiles of Latin American artists, who were then invited to Switzerland. “There is cross-pollination,” Mr. Spiegler said.

In an effort to cultivate Asian collectors, Art Basel has hired VIP relations officers in Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, and is seeking representatives in Beijing and Taipei.

“This kind of high-touch approach is important,” said Mr. Renfrew.

While the May date is conveniently near Hong Kong’s spring auctions, it’s not ideal for overseas collectors and galleries, who are already hopping from Frieze in New York to Art Basel in Switzerland this time of year.

Mr. Spiegler cited the logistics of booking Hong Kong’s convention center, which is packed with trade shows and other events in the spring. “This is an issue we’ve been working on,” he said.

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