Denis J Thouvard has taken on the role of general manager at Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket. Thouvard was last area general manager at the Centara Grand Beach Resort in Karon Beach, Phuket.
Denis J Thouvard
Franck LaFourcade
Franck LaFourcade is returning to Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel in Hanoi for a second stint as general manager. Previously general manager of the hotel between 2000 and 2005, LaFourcade’s homecoming follows nine years managing Sofitel properties in Shanghai as general manager and area general manager.
Conrad Macao to take meeting planners to bed with new promotion
A NEW campaign by Conrad Macao, Cotai Central is giving meeting planners a chance to take home a bed worth US$5,000 for free when they book a residential meeting with at least 100 cumulative room nights by the end of July.
To qualify for the Take Me to Bed promotion, meetings must be valued at US$40,000 and include a full-day meeting package that costs HK$680 (US$87) per room. The meeting must also be held by December 31, 2015.
Besides Take Me to Bed, Conrad Macao is offering a variety of packages that suit events of all kinds.
The Meetings More Rewarded programme offers various perks, including five per cent off the master bill and welcome entertainment performance, to groups that consume at least 25 rooms and a meeting package for one night. Bookings must be made by August 31 this year and held by December 31, 2015.
The Intimate Meetings programme gives away one room with every 10 Deluxe Rooms or Suites booked. Meetings must be contracted by December 31, 2014 for arrivals by December 31, 2015.
Email conrad.macao.sales@conradhotels.com for more information.
Mandarin Orchard Singapore puts new club lounge in a prime spot
A NEW executive club lounge has opened on levels 38 and 39 of Mandarin Orchard Singapore, taking over the location of the hotel’s iconic revolving rooftop restaurant.
Meritus Club Lounge at Top of the M features a separate reception and meeting rooms on the lower level while the upper floor has a main dining area for 95 guests. Meritus Club guests can enjoy a 360-degree panoramic view of the city skyline through floor-to-ceiling glass windows as well as all-day culinary refreshments.
To meet business meeting and conferencing needs, an eight-seat boardroom is available. It is fitted with state-of-the-art audiovisual capabilities, high-speed Internet connectivity and overhead projection.
Marriott Hotel Manila appoints convention sales chief
JOY Florentino has joined Marriott Hotel Manila as its first director for convention sales, in anticipation of the January 2015 opening of the 6,800m2 Marriott Grand Ballroom and 228-room Hotel Tower.
Florentino has a strong background in the MICE trade. She is a certified meeting planner, former associate vice chair of the California Society of Association Executives and past president of Meeting Professionals International, Sacramento Sierra Nevada Chapter.
She also worked with Marriott International as director of sales for the Sacramento Area Cluster and senior market account executive for Western Mountain Pacific Sales where she implemented strategies for identifying key association accounts.
Oakwood, Travelport back CTW Asia-Pacific with sponsorship
CTW Asia-Pacific, an annual conference and exhibition for the region s corporate travel professionals, has sealed a sponsorship deal with accommodation and hospitality specialist, Oakwood Worldwide, and global travel technology, solution and service provider, Travelport.
Explaining the company’s decision to put its money behind the trade show, Oakwood Worldwide managing director, Craig Ryan, said: “The event’s ability to attract valuable decision-makers involved in corporate travel procurement has been the key motivating factor in our leap to be a first-time CTW Asia-Pacific sponsor.
“The show has proved to be a very important one in the annual calendar of corporate travel managers in Asia-Pacific. Being a sponsor ensures we are able to directly engage and better acquaint the industry with the Oakwood Worldwide brand and its suite of accommodation solutions.”
Sharing the same sentiments is returning sponsor Travelport. Corporate account director, Dirk Mertens, said: “By exclusively hosting a segment for the event’s attendees, we had a captive platform to interact with corporate travel professionals from around the region. As a result of this direct engagement, we gained a deeper understanding of the needs of business travellers.”
He added: “Returning as a sponsor enables us to meet with new corporate professionals and build on the working relationships we had forged with this sector in 2013.”
CTW Asia-Pacific is organised by TTG Events, a division of TTG Asia Media. It will be held from September 30 to October 2 at the Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld.
Staging Connections appointed audiovisual supplier for Merivale
FOLLOWING an intensive tender process, Staging Connections has been given the contract to provide all audiovisual requirements at Ivy Ballroom and the Sunroom, venues under Australian hospitality and entertainment company, Merivale.
According to a press release, Staging Connections was chosen for its “varied experience and global reputation for delivering engaging event solutions”.
The Ivy Ballroom is a 509m2 open plan venue in the middle of Sydney’s CBD. It boasts six-metre high ceilings with white chandeliers. The full Ivy compound provides additional bookable spaces such as a lawn and a terrace, and various dining outlets.
Destinations need a new marketing approach for meetings: MCI’s Cerezales
THE existing marketing model to attract meetings is “broken” and destinations must adopt new methods, according to MCI Group COO for Asia-Pacific, Oscar Cerezales.
“Current strategies are not client-centric. Corporation and association event planners (have) a completely different approach,” he said in the new Global Report on the Meeting Industry which was presented by the UN World Tourism Organization at its headquarters in Madrid last Thursday.
Calling for destinations to “reinvent the game”, Cerezales noted that almost 90 per cent of destination management organisations/convention bureaus “cannot (make) quick decisions as they belong to regional or national tourism bodies… therefore the number of levels of bureaucracy can make decision-making extremely complicated”.
Cerezales also observed that destinations are still using traditional marketing strategies that “have not been updated for 20 years” with limited use of new technologies or “smart and social media campaigns”.
He suggested that destinations could develop a brand for meetings and to “position themselves” as how the Scandinavian members of ICCA had done by claiming to be the world’s first sustainable meetings region.
There are now too many destination management organisations/convention bureaus, he opined, leading to a “stretching of resources (that) does not provide a high level of efficiency”.
He also urged destinations to be better funded and more technologically friendly.
According to Cerezales, destinations will eventually become “the owners of events”, a change that will coincide with “an explosion in the number of events” that will be “smaller and more targeted to suit the locality, which often means they fly under the radar of destinations where the focus is big is best”.
In introducing the report, UNWTO secretary general Taleb Rifai said that with business events accounting for a quarter of travel, it was important that the sector be seen “not just as a product but a collection of many products” as it links with other trading sectors in a local economy.
Lanyon creates next-gen tools for corporate travel and managers
LAST month’s merger of ACTIVE Network Business Solutions and Lanyon in the US means corporate travel and strategic meeting management programme (SMMP) managers will have access to next-generation tools that provide a full view of spend and eliminate multiple-point solutions to gather spend data on their hotel and event programmes.
ACTIVE, a leader in event marketing and Strategic Meetings Management technology, and Lanyon, a transient hotel programme technology leader will now operate under the Lanyon brand.
Lanyon’s clients include 875 corporate clients and 35 of the world’s largest intermediaries. In addition to data and analytics tools, it also provides hospitality and venue suppliers with access to thousands of corporate customers and associations searching for new properties and venues.
Kevin Iwamoto, vice president of industry strategy, Lanyon, said: “Next-generation tools that enable the consolidation of data are expected to become the norm as corporate buyers seek to capture and utilise business intelligence from their organisation’s overall meetings, events, transient business travel and hospitality spend.
“This consolidation will help corporate buyers and programme managers to become more savvy when it comes to supplier negotiations because it will provide them with a 360-degree view of their spend on everything from small meetings, to Strategic Meetings Management Programmes, to large and complex events,” he added, saying Lanyon is the first technology company in the forefront of this trend.
To capture, control and manage meetings, events and transient hotel spend, companies require a series of end-to-end processes that address hotel and venue sourcing, analytics, reporting, spend management and compliance.
Iwamoto noted most corporations today use multiple-point solutions to gather data on their hotel programme spend and use a separate set of point solutions for their meetings and event spend.
The merger enables clients to combine all data from the organisation’s travel and event spend into a single technology platform and reduce disparate data points where they have to manually gather data from, to create reports.
“This type of access to Big Data regarding spend is expected to lead to smarter supplier organisations, and enable corporations to create meetings, events, corporate transient travel and hospitality strategies that tie back to the strategy of the larger organisation,” Iwamoto noted.
Nopparat Maythaveekulchai
Crossing into the MICE realm from the national telco, the new president of Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, tells Karen Yue that he is having fun learning the ropes and applying his IT know-how to boost the destination’s marketing reach
You started your career with TOT Public Company and was with it for 20 years. Why the crossover to the MICE industry?
The business events industry is not entirely new to me. When I was with TOT I had the chance to participate in a number of trade exhibitions and meetings. I believe the telecommunications industry contributes 10 per cent of business to the MICE industry.
Just as the telecommunications industry is important to Thailand’s economy, so is the MICE industry. One per cent of Thailand’s GDP comes from the MICE industry, and MICE revenue ranks third highest for the country, after export and tourism.
I believe that with my leadership, stronger promotions and better planning, MICE revenue can grow even more.
But MICE industry is still quite different from what you have been so used to. Have you been put through a rigorous crash course on the workings of the MICE realm since joining the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) on May 16, 2013?
I am very fortunate to have joined TCEB with a very strong and motivated team in place. This team has taught me a lot about the MICE business and I am loving every moment. With them working with me, coming to work feels like partaking in a fun hobby!
Since coming onboard, I’ve joined the team in attending several trade shows such as IMEX America in Las Vegas, IT&CMA in Bangkok and AIME in Melbourne.
With so much attention on the political demonstrations in Bangkok, has it been difficult trying to sell Thailand at these trade events?
Attitudes of buyers and media are different everywhere. At AIME, I was delighted to find that Australian delegates still regard Thailand as a peaceful destination. They recognise that Thailand offers good service and quality, and a mix of adventure and entertainment. Australia is an important market for Thailand, so this is great news.
Before coming to Melbourne (for AIME), we had braced ourselves for tough media questions about the demonstrations. We had also expected buyers to stay away from the Thailand booth. Fortunately, journalists and buyers at the show were very supportive and most only wanted to know what new things TCEB is doing to push Thailand. We heard that Thai Airways had 26 appointments each day at AIME!
The demonstrations occupy only a small area in Bangkok.Business is on as usual in the rest of the city and other destinations in Thailand. There are six international airports in the country to take you to other parts of Thailand. AIME provided an excellent platform for us to reinforce those messages.
So what new initiatives do you have up your sleeves?
TCEB established a Digital MICE team on Feb 25 and it is behind the bureau’s new online marketing and communication strategy. This is an example of what I’m bringing to the table for TCEB – I have good IT knowledge from my previous job and am applying that to new digital initiatives, with inputs from the team of course.
Part of the new online marketing and communication strategy is the creation of an information management system, a comprehensive database of past events held in Thailand that we can use to project and plan for the future. We intend to share such market intelligence with Team Thailand, that is, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Transport.
We will also make some information accessible for industry players. For instance, we have hired a company to conduct an annual survey on the MICE industry, and findings will be distributed. Hopefully, they can use that data in their business planning.
We have also launched www.businesseventsthailand.com to provide MICE specialists with all the information and materials they will need to sell and promote Thailand as a destination. You can get MICE statistics, destination features and suitable attractions, supplier contacts, and testimonials from people who have taken business to Thailand or attended trade events in Thailand.
Sounds like you and your team will have a busy year!
(Laughs) That’s not all. We are powering up our social media reach. In January we reached out to event bloggers and PCOs through the MICE Destination Review Competition, in partnership with Thai Airways. By inviting these individuals to share their experiences (in five of Thailand’s MICE cities) via social media, we hope to improve future MICE travellers’ impression and experience of Thailand. (Five finalists were shortlisted and put on a tour that showcased the MICE capabilities of Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Khon Kaen from January 19-25.)
Then there is also the Spice Up Your Business agenda campaign which will start in April to offer perks such as flight tickets to MICE visitors. (Days after the interview, TCEB issued a press release announcing details of its online marketing strategy which will be implemented under three key frameworks, including the development of the above-mentioned database, production of digital sales and marketing tools, and innovative online marketing and public relations activities. Spice Up Your Business campaign is part of three new initiatives; the other two being Dream Meeting Contest and Itinerary Contest.)
Do you think these online activities will soften the impact of the political protests on Thailand’s MICE business?
Tourist arrivals to Thailand are actually holding up despite the demonstrations and news coverage, although MICE clients are taking longer to consider and confirm their bookings.
In January this year, Thailand saw 2,319,821 visitors. The same month last year it was 2,318,447. Visitor arrivals are still averaging at two million the past few months. Between October and December 2013, Thailand welcomed 186,864 MICE travellers, up 5.2 per cent over the same period in 2012.
I take that to mean that TCEB will not be adjusting its MICE targets for 2014.
We are sticking to our targets. You could say we are a little fortunate that the demonstrations are happening in months that are usually low season for business event. If this problem continues into March, we may have to play catch up in the later part of the year but we will still work towards our existing target. (On February 28, protestors issued a statement to say they will end blockages in key parts of Bangkok and consolidate their movement at Lumpini Park instead.)
We have several initiatives in place to motivate meeting planners to keep choosing Thailand, such as the Thai CONNECT campaign which comes with subvention. On top of current programmes, we have announced new ones such as Be My Guest (a hosted buyer programme that provides complimentary room nights to entice business event travellers to extend their stay in Bangkok), additional meeting and convention support through Meetings Bonus and Conventions Bonus rewards packages, and Business Up 2 U (a fixed subsidy programme for exhibitions).
How useful are these subvention programmes in rebuilding MICE buyer confidence in Bangkok?
We hosted a party for 100 Australian MICE buyers during AIME 2014 and took the chance to give our guests an update on the political demonstrations in Bangkok, showcased the various destinations in Thailand, and presented all the new campaigns and subvention programmes we have.
By the end of the evening, we got a confirmation from Tupperware Brand for a 500-pax event in May.
The next morning we got news that a 300-pax group is also planning to head to Bangkok.
We are not trying to use money to solve our problems, but these subvention programmes can help to compensate clients for the extra costs they may have to fork out for (contingency plans).
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