Open communication with all parties is critical if success is desired for an event with a large, global delegation.
Event brief
The IBM analytics sales, technical sales team, and its business partners were looking to come together for a four-day academy programme that would involve a total of 1,202 delegates from Asia-Pacific, Greater China, the Middle East, Africa and Japan.
Challenges
IBM needed a venue that could accommodate the large delegation, yet at the same time provide intimate meeting spaces that were customisable for breakout sessions.
Due to the sheer magnitude of people, there was a need to ensure that none of the delegates would be neglected. The event organisers needed a solution to ensure every delegate was well taken care of.
Solutions
The 3,896-room Sheraton Macao Hotel’s extensive meeting facilities easily met the requirements as the hotel’s pillarless grand ballroom could accommodate 5,000 guests in theatre-style – more than enough for IBM’s delegation. Moreover, the hotel had six junior ballrooms in addition to 96 breakout rooms.
Nathan Nyvall, one of the event organisers from IBM, said: “The strengths of Sheraton Macao as a venue is that it is big enough to accommodate our group, the meeting space is nicely laid out and compact enough so that it is very easy to find the rooms. The digital signs (placed by the hotel) were also a great help when navigating our way around the property.”
Nyvall added: “It’s not easy to find hotels that are able to accommodate and run a world-class event for such a large number
of people.”
Keeping in mind IBM’s concern about meeting the expectations of the delegates promptly, Sherwin Lucas, assistant director of event services, Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central, said they helped to customise a StarGroups booking system for this event. This ensured “seamless and open lines of communication” with the organisers, meeting planners, delegates and various internal teams.
Lucas said: “This system allowed delegates to manage their room bookings, have access to event details and look up destination specific information about Macau through this one-stop web platform.
“It also enabled individual delegates to self-manage their preferences during their stay with us, their schedules and room arrangements as well as (submit) specific requests,” he explained.
Key takeaways
Emphasising the importance of relationships, Lucas said: “It pays to build synergistic relationships and trust with meeting planners and event managers early in the game so that during the event, everyone is on the same page.
“We must also keep communication lines open among meeting planners, delegates and the hotel throughout the event to ensure quick response time to issues and unexpected requests. (That way), everyone is kept in the loop at all times,” he added.
