Brought to you by DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City
Bearing testimony to its eco-friendly credentials, DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City won the International Sustainable Award 2022 by Luxury Lifestyle Awards in the same year it opened its doors to guests.
According to general manager, Gagan Talwar, prioritising sustainability is a strategic move as it caters to the current green meeting trends.
The 300-key five-star hotel strives to drive the message of sustainability to its guests by implementing eco-friendly practices throughout its premises – from the guestrooms to the hotel F&B options.
Talwar told TTG mice that sustainability considerations begin from the procurement and sourcing operations.
Eco-conscious organisers and planners keen to ensure their events and meetings are sustainable will find DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City a green MICE venue of choice.
For a start, the hotel can offer them the option of “offsetting their carbon emission through a meeting calculator”.
To make sure eco-friendly menu items are available for delegates, the hotel takes on the responsibility to find continuous supplies of fresh local produce for its restaurants too.
Talwar said: “Our kitchen team has specially curated menus that promote locally sourced and nutritious food options. In line with our Meet with Purpose goals, we work with local vendors like BOOM GROW and GWG Fresh to ensure we continue to support local businesses and the community.”
The green meeting initiatives extend to linen-less set-ups and environmentally-friendly Tetra packs of water to further reduce carbon footprint.
All meeting rooms are also fitted with LED lights and managed by a building management system to ensure optimal conditions are maintained without excessive use of energy and resources.
Well-positioned to capture demand
DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City is also well-positioned to capture the MICE demand with its expansive 1,594m² state-of-the-art meeting spaces and facilities spread over two floors, making it an ideal venue for business conferences, events, weddings and other social gatherings.
The stunning pillar-less grand ballroom, with three built-in LED screens, measures at 1,170m² and can accommodate up to 1,000 guests.
In addition, another 10 flexible meeting rooms are equipped with advanced audio-visual and technical facilities, high-speed internet, bespoke coffee stations, quality catering services and have direct access to the car park.
Within close proximity to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, the hotel is also well connected to major highways, as well as just 40 and 25 minutes away from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport respectively.
Apart from the eforea Spa – first in Malaysia – within the hotel premises, bleisure options are aplenty for business delegates with Central i-City mall locating next door to the hotel housing about 350 retail stores, kiosks, and pop-up shops, only three minutes away and i-City Convention Centre, and a theme park consisting of SnoWalk, WaterWorld @ i-City and City Of Digital Lights, just a stone’s throw away.
Furthermore, Talwar also believes that DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City being nearby to the major manufacturing hubs of Shah Alam can step up to fill the market gap of five-star meeting and convention offerings needed in the area too.
Find out how DoubleTree by Hilton Shah Alam i-City is the ideal green option for event planners and business travellers to stay, work and play.
He was previously resort manager of Anantara Kihavah Maldives Villas.
With over 20 years of experience in the leisure and business hospitality industries, he was most recently general manager of Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne, Vietnam.
Teune’s most recent position was as director of operations at The Reykjavik Edition, Iceland.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), its impact on event planning, and real-world applications were some of the topics discussed at The Future of Work: Impact of AI on the Workforce workshop held at the PCMA Labs in Hong Kong earlier this month.
One of the speakers, Prudential’s regional director of technology innovation, Andy Chun, walked the audience through the evolution of AI and the latest developments. He pointed out that AI and cloud storage has been growing rapidly over the past seven years, which gave rise to chatbots and ChatGPT.
Chun said: “ChatGPT can help us to write content, emails, do research, and can even design and plan things. But you would have to develop carefully-crafted prompts to guide the AI to produce the correct answers.”
He likened it to explaining work processes to an intern with no prior experience, and outlining information such as what is the objective, target audiences, and details on what to include.
However, he cautioned that ChatGPT is “not always accurate”, so it is advisable for users to “double check their sources of information”. Copyright is another issue that has not been settled. That is why users should never share confidential data, and opt out of data sharing.
Still, generative AI could be useful for business events planners, Chun noted. For instance, event planners can use generative AI to conduct market research on trending topics and find out what topics people are interested in now; run data analysis; design an event; create content; and even come up with a marketing campaign design.
Gevme’s vice president design, Johnathan Easton, also spoke about various AI practical applications to spark or amplify creativity, as well as build content quickly.
He said: “ChatGPT can also be used to write a blog post, event agenda, or even a legal review. It can even generate a summary after a virtual meeting.”
Moreover, generative AI can help to generate images, such as those by Midjourney, a generative AI programme and service created by San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney. Animations, videos, and music can also be generated through prompts.
As part of the workshop, the 40 attendees were also given early access to the recently-launched Project Spark by PCMA and Gevme, an AI tool aimed at helping planners jumpstart routine event design and planning tasks, content generation and marketing communications.