Javier Laforgue will take on the role of executive vice president, travel unit & managing director, Asia-Pacific. He will oversee Amadeus’ business across the region and will be based in the Singapore office.
Bringing more than two decades of travel industry knowledge to Asia-Pacific, he has extensive experience in various senior management roles across Amadeus. His most recent position was global head of air distribution.
Macau is staying active in the business events scene, and continues to induct new event spaces, develop fresh attractions, as well as expand her stable of hotel rooms through property expansions.
One major project in the works is the Galaxy International Convention Center. The venue features a 10,000m2 pillar-less exhibition hall, a 4,000m2 conference hall, and a 16,000-seat Galaxy Arena for concerts and sporting events.
Directly connected to the convention centre will be the Andaz Macau, set to open soon with over 700 rooms and suites. Also in the pipeline is the 483-suite Raffles at Galaxy Macau.
All three builds are part of the Galaxy Macau expansion plans. Although construction has been completed, their openings will largely depend on how the pandemic situation plays out.
Nearby in Cotai, Studio City’s phase two expansion is also happening.
Once complete, approximately 900 hotel rooms will be added – one of which is a W hotel – alongside a state-of-the-art business events venue, and attractions such as the Super Fun Zone – a four-storey family-friendly entertainment facility – and an indoor water park.
More hotel rooms will join Macau’s portfolio via the Treasure Island Resort World Hotel. Facing Nam Van Lake, the property will boast 600 hotel rooms and a five-storey shopping and entertainment complex.
According to a Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) spokesperson: “These new developments will provide Macau with the necessary infrastructure to work towards the goal of deepening “tourism +” cross-sector integration, including “tourism + MICE”, “tourism + sports”.
“This will take the city’s tourism industry to the next level, fostering related sectors and diversifying the destination’s offerings, to attract different profiles of visitors for longer stays and more spending.”
Earlier in April, MGTO also unveiled a promotional campaign – titled Experience Macao, Unlimited – which will sport different themes each month. The most recent theme in June was gourmet food, reflecting the Creative City of Gastronomy recognition by UNESCO.
A spokesperson from the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) shared that the organisation will help planners to “enrich local itineraries” that revolve around various themes.
For now, as Macau patiently waits for borders to open, the various hotels continue to reinvent and revamp their offerings to stay competitive.
For instance, Grand Hyatt Macau has been revamping its F&B menus that utilise seasonal or organic ingredients due to the increased emphasis on wellness.
A hotel spokesperson added that the Grand Hyatt Macau also provides “hybrid meeting solutions” with the latest event technology for meetings as small as 10, up to large conventions of over 1,000 people.
The Londoner Macao, which opened in 2021, is also waiting to unveil its 6,000-seater multipurpose arena for big conferences and concerts, as well as a 1,700-seat Londoner Theatre.
For now, to capture the hybrid events market, Sands China has unveiled the Smart Stage at The Londoner Macao, an Extended Reality (XR) studio.
Smart Stage offers professional broadcast quality live-streaming capability and hologram functionality. Unlike the classic ‘green screen’ environment, XR allows presenters to interact with real-time visual markers to deliver a more authentic experience.
Within the 1,400m2 venue, the backdrop, floor, and stage lighting can all be customised, designed and operated to suit an organiser’s requirements, shared general manager sales and marketing at t the Sheraton Grand Macao, Cotai Central and The St. Regis Maca, Daniella Tonetto.
On the activities front, “many of the integrated resorts have begun diversifying and revamping their products to further differentiate themselves,” general manager for Hong Kong & Macau at global agency MCI, Olinto Oliveira told TTGmice.
For example, Lisboeta Macau lures younger travellers with its H853 Fun Factory, a one-stop retail-tainment space that includes exhilarating attractions such as the 388m-long ZIPCITY Macau, first-ever indoor skydiving centre GoAirborne, and various art exhibitions.
In mid-2021, Studio City opened a waterpark which Oliveira opined will make a “big splash” with groups in the summer months. The resort is also home to Legend Heroes Park – the city’s first tech-based VR theme park.
Oliveira confidently stated: “Overall when the time comes for major events and conferences to return to the city, visitors will certainly be pleasantly surprised to find that the city has been hard at work ensuring that the destination continues to be a premier location for unforgettable experiences.”
Food and Hotel Asia (FHA) – Food & Beverage 2022 is back physically for the first time since the onset of the pandemic, and will be held from September 5-8, 2022 at the Singapore Expo.
The four-day event is expected to feature over 2,000 exhibitors and 50 international group pavilions – such as Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, South Korea, and the Netherlands – across 60,000m2 of exhibition space. Around 35,000 local and international visitors are also expected to attend.
New to the 2022 edition of FHA-Food & Beverage is a 1,400m2 feature zone dedicated entirely to plant-based and food-technology alternatives to animal proteins. Alternative Protein Asia (APA) is offering a maturing industry vertical a new B2B platform to conduct business, connect with investors, address sustainable practices, and provide a four-day thought-leadership conference on innovation.
Exhibiting food tech companies include global players like Impossible Foods, Harvest Gourmet, First Pride, Big Idea Ventures, Finnebrogue, Tindle, Oatside, GrowthWell, Shiok Meats and many others.
APA’s conference programme will also feature over 40 thought leaders and experts from companies such as Nestle, Accor, GlobalData, and SaladStop!, and schools such as Singapore Management University and Nanyang Technological University.
APA will also host the inaugural Big Idea Food Competition, created by Big Idea Ventures, which will shine a spotlight on the best plant-based food entrepreneurs in Asia with the winner clinching an investment prize of US$200,000 at the finals.
Other key events in the line-up include:
And after being a part of Food&HotelAsia (FHA) for 44 years, FHA Horeca – which caters to hotels, restaurants, and cafes – will have a spin-off on its own slated for October 25-28, 2022.
Wellington has launched the Wellington Advocate Network to tap into the knowledge of its local thought leaders to expand its business events bids.
The network’s initial membership comprises a mix of academics representing the local arts/music, engineering/computer science, and health sectors, as well as national association representatives from the National Council for Women and Volunteering New Zealand.
One of the Wellington Advocate Network’s inaugural members, Suzanne Manning, president of the National Council of Women New Zealand, is working with Business Events Wellington as host of the International Council of Women’s Executive Committee Meeting and Asia-Pacific Region Council Meeting in 2023. She hopes to bring the International Congress of the International Council of Women to Wellington sometime in the future.
She said: “I’m looking forward to the connections that we should be able to make through the Wellington Advocate Network, which will be good for us through to the conference and beyond.
“Bringing the conference to Wellington will allow our members to connect with the work that our sisters are doing around the world, and particularly strengthen our connections with Pacific nations. It will provide opportunities for mutual support and exchange of ideas and solutions to common problems.”
Fellow advocate Brian Diettrich, senior lecturer in ethnomusicology at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Music, is working with Business Events Wellington to bid for the International Conference on Traditional Music in 2025.
He said: “We envision that the 2025 World Conference will bring together scholars, performers, and students from across our region and globally in an inclusive and interactive meeting. As only the third time in Oceania since its inception in 1947, the conference in 2025 offers a chance to bring together participants in a world-facing event and showcase the best of New Zealand and Wellington. For Victoria University of Wellington and the NZ School of Music, this is an opportunity to extend our networks and collaborations globally.”
Business Events Wellington’s manager, Irette Ferreira, noted: “Business Events Wellington has strong, long-standing relationships with numerous key stakeholders that have hosted or supported international conferences in the city in the past or have confirmed conferences for Wellington in the future.
“Their knowledge, work and connections in their respective fields play a crucial role in securing these international events and creating new opportunities to represent Wellington globally.
“By formalising our relationship, we aim to recognise the positive benefits they bring to Wellington’s economy and society through their conferences and to increase the impact of those events. We also encourage others to join them and bid for events that will strengthen Wellington.”
The Mekong Tourism Forum 2022 will return as a face-to-face event from October 12-13 at Hoiana Resort & Golf in Quang Nam province in Vietnam.
With the theme Rebuild Tourism, Rebound with Resilience, it will be the first in-person gathering of the six Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) destinations since 2019, comprising public- and private-sector tourism leaders and experts.
“With a lot of rebuilding and catching up to do, the Mekong Tourism Forum 2022 aims to drive real action and create a more resilient, inclusive, sustainable and successful tourism industry,” said Nguyen Trung Khanh, chairman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
Discussions will focus on tourism recovery, digital transformation, supply chain localisation, social enterprise business models, and best practices for a resilient travel sector rebound, including the use of new technologies and megatrends that affect tourism recovery.
Specific panels will address social enterprises, connecting sustainable tourism suppliers and buyers, and unlocking green tourism opportunities.
Speakers will include leaders from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, representatives from other GMS national tourism organisations, the Asian Development Bank, Destination Mekong, Agoda, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, OAG, YAANA Ventures, EXO Travel, Travelife and the ASEAN Tourism Association, among others.
Complimentary transfers to Da Nang international airport, which is 40 minutes from the conference venue, will be provided on October 11 and 14.
There will also be post-event delegate tours in the Quang Nam area on October 13.
The Philippines has won the bid to host the Worldchefs Asian Presidents Forum in 2023.
This announcement was made by World Association of Chefs Society (Worldchefs) continental director for Asia chef Willment Leong during the Philippine Culinary Cup awarding ceremony earlier in August at the SMX Convention Center.
The Worldchefs Asian Presidents Forum is a three-day event that aims to foster camaraderie among chefs in the Asia Pacific region with a line-up that includes the presentation of the latest gastronomical trends, knowledge-sharing on sustainability practices, and culinary education sessions.
The forum will bring together delegates from different Asia Pacific chefs associations with around 3,000 expected attendees. Attendees will also have a chance to see the local markets in the Philippines and get a taste of the diversity of the country’s cuisine and culture.
The event was secured through the efforts and collaboration between the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) Philippines and the LTB Philippines Chefs Association.
The Marriott Grand Ballroom (MGB) within Newport World Resort in Manila, Philippines, has added a new event space, the 3,800m2 MGBX Convention Hall.
The new MGBX Convention Hall is located on the lower Level B1 of the Marriott Grand Ballroom. It has a total floor area of 4,400m2 and is furnished with high-tech audiovisual and lighting systems. It is a tad smaller than MGB, which has a total floor area of 4,7000m2.
Bruce Winton, Marriott International’s multi-property vice president in the Philippines, said the company decided to convert an under-utilised space into an exhibition area to “fulfil a growing need as the industry recovers”.
Although the Philippines’ business events industry has not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, the future is looking bright. Social and milestone events are back in full swing, while domestic corporate meetings, association and governmental events, have picked up. These are complemented by several international corporate events from around Asia-Pacific.
“We are seeing positive signs in 4Q this year, and I think that year-end activity is on track to match 2019 volumes,” Winton told TTGmice.
He added that the hosting of the 2022 WTTC Global Summit in April helped to bring “positive attention” to the Philippines as a business events destination, and highlighted its capability to executive international business events of the highest degree despite pandemic-related setbacks.
Pico X, the innovation unit of Pico Group, has expanded the Group’s data services into analytics, machine-learning and applied artificial intelligence with the release of a proprietary ExQ Experience Analytics platform.
ExQ Experience Analytics is a new AI-powered data analytics solution designed to bring data-driven decision-making and measurement into the events industry, which has been deeply impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It effectively measures, compares and optimises audience experiences to drive return on experience and return on investment.
In today’s big data environment, with data points proliferating as the events industry moves towards virtual and now metaverse events, the costly resources needed to process and make sense of this data increase exponentially and can be out of reach for many companies.
By using Pico’s ExQ Experience Analytics, event planners will be able to pinpoint project weaknesses using a scoring system based on comprehensive data points. By leveraging first-party data sets, ExQ helps clients understand their data, and improves their brand experiences. Data can now be fully integrated into brand activations and always-on engagement strategies.
Other benefits of ExQ Experience Analytics include access to ExQ Score benchmarks; the live monitoring of audience engagement and experience optimisation insights; insights into data-informed content programming; using machine-learning and AI to identify potential issues; and provide execution transparency to clients and internal stakeholders.
In its soft launch during the last 24 months, ExQ Experience Analytics has been applied to some 70 projects from a wide spectrum of business sectors globally.
To illustrate how the ExQ Experience Analytics platform helps users leverage first-party data to create experience scores and benchmarks, the Pico X team has developed an ExQ Lite Calculator that lets users experiment with project variables and see their outcomes. It quantifies the impact of experiences using the metrics of ‘Relevance’, ‘Attention’ and ‘Interest’.
The Oakwood Premier Phnom Penh in Cambodia has opened, extending the Oakwood Premier brand presence to 10 destinations.
Centrally located in the Cambodian capital’s business and entertainment district, the new-build offers 207 keys across deluxe rooms, studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The crowning glory is the 547m2 Penthouse that offers panoramic views of the city skyline.
Amenities on-site include several meeting rooms, while F&B options include an all-day restaurant, Senses; the Aroma bakery and café; Churchill’s whiskey and cigar bar; and a Residents’ Lounge and executive lounge serving all-day snacks and refreshments. Recreational facilities include an outdoor swimming pool and fitness centre.
Additionally, as part of the brand’s hallmark experience, Oakwood Premier Mobile Bar, a mixologist will deliver seasonal cocktails to each apartment every evening. Slated to launch in November 2022, this “mobile club lounge” service is a first of its kind in Cambodia, complemented by canapés, savouries and sweet treats.
Global travel prices are predicted to continue to increase in the remaining months of 2022 and throughout 2023, according to the 2023 Global Business Travel Forecast, published by CWT and the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).
Rising fuel prices, labour shortages, and inflationary pressures in raw material costs are the primary drivers of the expected price growth, according to the report, which uses anonymised data generated by CWT and GBTA, with publicly available industry information, and econometric and statistical modelling developed by the Avrio Institute.
Macroeconomic influences
The world economy shrank 3.4% in 2020 in one of the worst declines since World War II. Service sectors, including travel and hospitality, were hit especially hard, but the global economy recovered briskly, rising off the lows of 2020 and increasing 5.8% in 2021.
Economic growth is moderating as the recovery lengthens, although another recession is a growing concern. The current base case scenario for 2022 is for 3% growth, followed by 2.8% growth in 2023. Cautionary notes also highlighted in the 2023 Global Business Travel Forecast, highlight the three main forces exerting pressure on the economy and the business travel industry. These include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine coupled with other geopolitical uncertainties, inflationary pressures that are pushing costs higher, and the risk of further Covid outbreaks that could restrict business travel.
Conversely, with businesses ranking sustainability among their top priorities and reflecting the accelerated importance of combating climate change, the report highlights greater visibility at the point of sale for greener travel options, as well as carbon foot-printing, and environmental impact assessment is an opportunity for the travel industry to actively assist in responsible choice-making.
Meetings and events
Prices have increased in all regions across most categories of spend, fuelled by pent-up demand, a desire to build company culture and an uncertain economic outlook. The cost-per-attendee for meetings and events in 2022 is expected to be around 25% higher than in 2019, and it’s forecast to rise a further 7% in 2023.
Alongside pent-up demand, corporate events are now competing with many other types of events that were cancelled in 2020. And, with many companies having given up office space during the pandemic in favor of remote working, they are now booking meeting spaces when staff gather in person, further fuelling demand.
Shorter lead times for events, varying from one to three months versus six to 12 months, are also contributing to this perfect storm, perhaps underscored by corporate concerns that the situation they face today could change very rapidly. This is particularly noticeable within Asia Pacific, which has been slower than other regions to re-open post-pandemic, with ongoing restrictions in China prompting clients to make sure their events can go ahead, and as quickly as possible.
Air
Business travel airfares fell over 12% in 2020 from 2019 followed by an additional 26% decline in 2021. Economy ticket prices fell over 24% from 2019 to 2021, while premium tickets fell 33%. Prices are expected to rise 48.5% in 2022, but even with this steep price increase, prices are expected to remain below pre-pandemic levels until 2023. Following an increase of 48.5% in 2022, prices are expected to rise 8.4% in 2023.
Rising demand and continued price rises on jet fuel, which have seen prices more than double in some markets to over $160/barrel according to S&P Global, are putting upward pressure on ticket prices.
Premium class tickets comprised over 7% of all tickets purchased in 2019. The share of premium class tickets fell to 6.5% in 2020 and to 4.5% in 2021 but have started to rise in 2022. Through the first half of the year, premium tickets made up 6.2% of all tickets purchased. A rising share of premium class tickets will result in higher average fares as average ticket price comprises economy and premium.
International and cross-border bookings are recovering across most regions which will result in a higher share of international ticket bookings and a corresponding higher average ticket price despite uncertainties caused by the war in Ukraine. Following two years of minimal to no expenditure, business travellers are likely to be willing to spend more on tickets, especially as availability reduces due to labour shortages. This upward trend is largely due to widespread vaccine rollouts and border re-openings.
Hotel
Hotel prices fell 13.3% in 2020 from 2019 and a further 9.5% in 2021, however the report expects them to rise 18.5% in 2022 followed by an 8.2% lift in 2023. Hotel prices have already eclipsed 2019 levels in some areas such as Europe, the Middle East & Africa and North America and are expected do so globally by 2023.
Hotel rates have risen sharply in parts of the world including a 22% rise in North America – and a forecast 31.8% across Europe, the Middle East & Africa – driven by an accelerated recovery coupled with continued capacity constraints.
Hotel rate increases were initially driven by strong leisure travel in 2021 but group travel for corporate meetings and events is improving and transient business travel is similarly gaining healthy pace, putting further pressure on average daily hotel rates.
Ground transportation
Global car rental prices fell 2.5% in 2020 from 2019, before rising 5.1% in 2021. Prices are expected to increase 7.3% in 2022, hitting new highs, and rise a further 6.8% in 2023.
The vehicle industry remains capacity constrained and rental agencies which reduced fleet sizes in the wake of the pandemic, have not yet fully recovered – due in part to component shortages and supply chain disruptions that have reduced global auto production.
Rental agencies have reverted to buying used vehicles to increase fleet sizes and are keeping their vehicles longer. Some agencies are also buying vehicles from auto-makers outside of their historically supported brands.
Skyrocketing prices, vehicle shortages and the need for visibility into carbon emissions from door-to-door are driving corporate travel managers to factor ground transport into full trip planning from the beginning. This is especially true when factoring in the inclusion of electric vehicles, and while widespread adoption may still be a few years away, personal preference should not be underrated.