Sydney has been chosen as the host destination again
Sydney has been named as the host city for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) national conference Pathology Update 2022.
The conference is expected to attract over 800 delegates to Sydney over three days in March 2022, and will be held at ICC Sydney. This year’s conference was supposed to be held in a hybrid format, but snap lockdowns saw it converted into a completely virtual format in 48 hours.
Sydney (pictured) has been chosen as the host destination again
Pathology Update is the annual scientific educational meeting for the RCPA and the only conference of its kind in Australasia. Bringing together pathology professionals from its membership-base across Australia, New Zealand and South-east Asia, the meeting will focus on the leading and latest diagnostic processes.
BESydney CEO Lyn Lewis-Smith said that the 2022 event would further progress NSW’s focus on innovation in health and pathology, a key sector identified by Government for the state’s future prosperity. The Westmead Health and Innovation Precinct is set to become one of the largest health, education, research and training precincts in Australia. Spanning 75 hectares, the precinct will include four hospitals, four medical research institutes, and the largest research-intensive pathology service in New South Wales.
BESydney has secured a total of 84 events with a combined estimated direct expenditure of A$491 million (US$368 million) on the calendar for 2021 to 2026, spanning health, financial services, and technology, with 62 per cent of meetings impacted by Covid-19 successfully re-negotiated into future years.
The 253-key Pullman Khao Lak Resort in Phang Nga province has opened, making it the eighth Pullman property in Thailand.
Standing on Bang Muang Beach, rooms here start from the 44m2 Deluxe Room, to the 62m2 Family Suite, and 88m2 Presidential Suite that overlooks the ocean. The resort also features a collection of two-bedroom pool villas, good for small groups travelling together.
For meetings and events, the resort features a ballroom and two meeting rooms that can accommodate up to 350 guests. All venues are equipped with the latest technology.
Resort amenities include 1,400m2 freeform swimming pool, Rosalyn Spa with a Hamam bath experience, and 24/7 fitness facilities. Meanwhile, F&B options include the all-day dining Plai Dining Room, The Hub Pool, The Junction lobby lounge, and Kram Beach Club which focuses on seafood and Mediterranean dishes.
Pullman Khao Lak Resort is located less than two hours’ drive from Phuket International Airport and is close to local attractions including Khao Sok National Park, Sai Rung Waterfall, Rommanee Hot Spring, and Takua Pa Old Town.
Although commercial flight operations are still a long way to recovery, one private aviation brand has seen demand for private flights picking up, warranting its expansion across South-east Asia with new charter routes.
Speaking to TTGmice, Jim Baldy, CEO of Yugo, an air mobility platform that connects numerous points across Asia-Pacific, said the company has commenced new routes in the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand. Some of the more attractive new routes include Manila to Banwa Private Island in the Philippines; Koh Kong to Sihanoukville in Cambodia; Bangkok to Koh Samui in Thailand; Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highlands and Genting Highlands to Langkawi in Malaysia.
Yugo’s private aviation charters see an equal mix of business and leisure bookings, with many businessmen choosing to pick up loved ones for a holiday after their assignment
With the additional routes, Yugo now operates to over 150 destinations in this region, supported by a fleet of more than 50 aircraft from renowned private jet manufacturers such as Gulfstream, Bombardier and Dassault Falcon, as well as helicopter specialists Bell, Airbus, Leonardo and Robinson.
Yugo is presently working with select travel agents to supply its chartered flights, and is open to expanding its partnerships.
“We believe in the creation of an ecosystem where we provide solutions to trade agents to best suit the needs of their guests and customers. We welcome all new channels and networks,” remarked Baldy.
According to Baldy, Yugo is seeing an almost equal interest from leisure and business travellers, with leisure bookings being slightly more at the moment. However, the convenience of private aviation charters has helped to blur the lines between business and pleasure trips, with many Yugo customers choosing to “pick up close ones to travel to another destination for leisure” after work is done.
He said private aviation charters are a “business enabler” and a “reliable option for leisure activities”, hence the new routes were established to support desires to blend business with leisure during trips made amid the pandemic.
“We believe it is a great time to fly private to break with the constraints inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Baldy remarked. One of the top travel constraints today is health and safety concerns, and private aviation charters can offer reduced infection exposure risks to travellers.
He elaborated: “For example, there are around 700 points of contacts during a commercial flight. This is reduced to approximately 30 during a private flight. For the transportation of our guests, their families, friends and business partners, travelling private (provides) additional safety.”
While private aviation charters are often regarded as an exclusive service only for the rich and famous, Yugo has made solutions “much more accessible to a slightly wider number of people”.
“It is actually easier to book a private flight than what most people think. And since passengers can go for a rideshare, an empty leg flight, or a flight by the seat, it is also usually cheaper than what they usually think (a private flight would cost),” Baldy said.
Yugo customers can search and book flights online, or rely on Yugo’s concierge for arrangements.
When asked to clarify a common misconception that passengers on private aviation charters were able to bypass immigration restrictions, Baldy said all charters and passengers must still abide by local regulations and health protocol requirements.
Darren Chuckry is one of the thought leaders that host live weekly Expert Hours in PCMA’s Digital Event Strategist Course for APAC
Hybrid events are about interaction and engagement, not only about technology – just like face-to-face events. Darren Chuckry, Founder and Managing Partner of HK Initiative and Chair, Hong Kong of The Marketing Society, shares what he’s learned over the last 15-months and why PCMA’s DES Certification course is future-proofing careers.
What should I look out for when choosing an event platform? Are virtual and hybrid events really the new normal, or a passing phase? How do I price a hybrid event? How can I improve engagement? How can I make sure our audience has a positive experience?
You’ve probably asked yourself these questions, and more; have you come up with the answers?
For the last year, we have been focused on delivering events through a screen using technology – largely as a necessity due to restrictions on meeting in person – however, we have forgotten how important human connection still is. What does your viewer or participant want or crave from your event – whether they are attending in person or virtually – and how do you add value to their experience?
We, as an industry, need to throw out the old way of doing conferences and events. It’s time for us to start afresh – nobody wants to sit down all day and passively listen to experts speak; people want to be involved, engaged, and become part of the conversation.
As event professionals, we need to spend time working with the presenters to change the content they deliver and the way they deliver it to different audiences. However, even before we get to this, we need to take a step back and develop a hybrid event strategy. This will be the key to success and the reason I chose to become an APAC Expert in the PCMA Digital Event Strategist Certification Course and lead the live expert hours for two modules.
Whether you believe hybrid is here to stay or not, you need to be equipped to deliver effective and highly interactive online gatherings. Attaining a DES Certification is the first step – this course provides you with the priceless skills and knowledge you need. Not only is the content relevant, but you are given exclusive access to experienced APAC experts who share their knowledge in live sessions. I know from my experience over the last 20 years that it’s the peer learnings that has given me the most value; hearing first-hand what works, what doesn’t and why.
As one of the PCMA DES Certification course APAC Experts, I enjoy sharing my expertise and learnings on content and audience engagement. I am passionate about ‘connecting’ and if the world of social media has taught us anything, it’s that developing engaging content is the key to success. But more than that, it is understanding audience needs, expanding on brand loyalty and then using the right tools to deliver the best, most cost-effective solutions for a positive and memorable customer experience.
Sherrif Karamat, PCMA’s president and CEO addresses the Convening Leaders hybrid audience via telegraphic presence at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore in January 2021.
So, what can the DES Certification course deliver for you and your team?
As event and conference organisers, it’s our job to recognise and plan for the unexpected. In this new environment, having a digital element can ensure your event will proceed, regardless of external factors outside of your control. In the current climate, not having a digital aspect to an event is high risk and could see you isolate potential attendees.
The DES Certification equips event professionals with the knowledge they need today. They will learn from real case studies, access a forum of elite APAC event professionals, learn about the latest technology, and know how to price and market a hybrid event while bringing content together in an engaging way. I encourage all event and conference organisers to get in the game by taking this course and feel confident you have the skills you need to face the challenges of the events industry head on.
PCMA’s Digital Event Strategist (DES) Certification is a six-week course catering specifically for APAC business events and marketing professionals looking to future-proof their events and careers.
Centara Hotels & Resorts has appointed Franck Rodriguez as general manager of Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne, set to open in 3Q2021.
A French national with more than 20 years of industry experience, Rodriguez has worked reputed hospitality brands including Leading Hotels of the World, InterContinental Hotels Group and Starwood Hotels & Resorts (now part of Marriott International). He is also no stranger to the Centara brand, having spent a formative part of his career as the F&B manager at Centara Villas Samui.
More recently, Rodriguez was group director of operations with The Unique Collection of Hotels & Resorts for almost five years, overseeing a portfolio of 27 upscale properties, before joining IHG, where he was responsible for the opening of several key hotels, including the Asia Pacific region’s first-ever voco hotel in Danang.
The Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne is the second Centara Mirage resort worldwide, and is Centara Hotels & Resorts’ first property in Vietnam.
The family leisure destination is centred around an “Explorer’s Playground” waterpark, complete with pools, slides, a sailing ship, lazy river, splash zone and cliff-jumping rock. The property will also have 984 rooms and villas, and boast amenities such as six restaurants, six bars, playgrounds, entertainment complex, spa, observatory tower, grand ballroom, and outdoor amphitheatre.
InterContinental Maldives Maamunagau Resort has appointed Coetzer Deysel as general manager.
He will be responsible for driving the resort’s strategic and commercial growth, overseeing operational excellence and will continue to elevate the luxury positioning of IHG’s flagship property in the Maldives.
Deysel brings with him over 17 years of experience in hospitality across leading luxury brands such as Anantara Resorts, The Westin, W Hotels, naked Retreats and Le Meridien in resort destinations such as Mauritius, Maldives, Thailand, China and South Africa.
His most recent role was general manager of Ananatara Iko Mauritius Resort & Villas, where he oversaw the launch of the first Anantara resort in Mauritius.
Collaboration and building confidence across all verticals are key to restarting Indonesia’s exhibition industry, shared panellists at the Restarting Indonesia’s Exhibition Industry Webinar on July 1.
Online events do work, in the sense that content and ideas can be shared easily, and it is easier to stay in touch with business contacts, shared Kai Hattendorf, CEO of UFI, but everything else that’s related to trade and transactions still need to be conducted face-to-face. These findings that Hattendorf shared were based on UFI’s polls on 15,000 exhibition attendees around the globe.
Andreas: need to show the government that the exhibitions industry is still up and running, albeit at a slower pace
As such, the UFI chief strongly believes that in-person events will continue to have a strong showing post-pandemic.
However, what Indonesia’s exhibition stakeholders need to do is to convince the government that business events are not mass gatherings. This is because as event organisers, it would be easier to “set up a safe environment”, such as having ample floor space, ensuring minimum capacity, and providing necessary safety measures, noted Hattendorf.
Hosea Andreas Rungkat, chairman of Indonesian Exhibition Companies Association, agreed that it is important to restore the government’s confidence that exhibitions can be conducted safely, as well as convince exhibitors and buyers that attending an event would be safe.
He added: “(Before the pandemic), the government did not pay much attention to the exhibition industry, as they were focused on (leisure) travel. However, after we showed the amount of losses suffered by the industry, the government began to think about how it can help revive it.”
Indonesia’s exhibition industry suffered a total opportunity loss of approximately US$3.1 billion in 2020. These numbers were based on 4.1 million square metres of projected exhibition space available, and is equivalent to US$10.5 billion in direct economic impact.
Andreas also called on all industry stakeholders to cooperate and continue to plan ahead for events, to show that the industry still exists.
Still, one of the good things borne out of the pandemic was how quickly companies learnt to adopt and deploy new event formats such as hybrid events and virtual expos, noted Susan Tricia, co-founder and group CFO of Fireworks Trade Media Group.
All these tech innovations can still be used when exhibitions return, Tricia pointed out.
Meanwhile, Björn Kempe, CEO of Expoasia voiced his confidence in the Indonesian exhibition sector, and indicated that international exhibition companies will still be interested to invest in both Indonesia, and Asia as a whole due to its vast potential.
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) has appointed Eamonn Ferrin as vice president of international business.
Ferrin will oversee NCL’s sales efforts outside of the US and Canada and grow the Company’s international footprint by deepening existing travel relationships, reaping new business and further integrating international source markets into the Company’s global business plan. He reports to Todd Hamilton, NCL’s senior vice president of sales.
Eamonn Ferrin
Ferrin joined the Company in January 2019 as vice president and managing director for the UK, Ireland, Israel, South Africa and Middle East. During that time, he expanded the UK’s position as the Miami-based Cruise Line’s leading international market through strategic investments designed to support the travel agent community as part of the Company’s Partners First philosophy. Key efforts included the launch of the incentive programme NCL Freestyle Rewards, a new travel agent portal and resource centre Norwegian Central and a fly-cruise booking platform NCL Air.
Ferrin also increased NCL’s market share in the emerging markets of Israel, South Africa and the Middle East, where the Cruise Line recently increased its presence with the deployment of Norwegian Jade. The ship will make NCL history as the first to offer roundtrip cruises from Cape Town beginning December 2021.
Ferrin is an industry veteran with more than 23 years of travel and hospitality experience. He has worked in a variety of divisional CEO, chief operating officer and managing director roles in the UK, Canada and internationally for brands including Air Canada, Holidaybreak and MyTravel. Outside of NCL, Ferrin serves as a member of the CLIA Executive Committee and the CLIA Steering Group for the UK.
Half of the leading pharmaceutical and biopharma companies surveyed are ready to sponsor in-person events next autumn, according to a study conducted by AIM Group International.
The survey, titled Events in-person, hybrid or digital? Trends and perspectives from the Sponsors, captured the viewpoints from over 200 representatives of pharmaceutical and biopharma companies from across all therapeutic areas.
New event formats are drawing inspiration from different sectors, allowing the event organisers to identify the best solution to obtain the desired results
“We are at a turning point, with the reopening of in-person events from July and the planning of events for next autumn,” explained Patrizia Semprebene Buongiorno, vice president of AIM group international.
“At this juncture, we considered it would be useful to ask corporate decision-makers who sponsor events to understand their attitudes and desires and devise solutions and projects more in line with the expectations of the market. The results of the survey are very interesting and encouraging because they reveal first and foremost that companies continue to believe in the benefits of in-person events and are keen to invest in this tool going forward.”
Here are some of the key findings:
Half of the companies surveyed are ready to sponsor in-person events next autumn, only 16% exclude it as an option, the remaining 37% prefer to decide later.
The budget for events in 2021 will mostly be allocated to in-person or hybrid events (43%) while digital-only events were preferred by one in three companies (35%).
Assuming participation in a hybrid event, the majority would prefer to participate in-person (52%), or both in-person and online (31%), only a small fraction (17%) would choose to attend the event online only.
As for virtual events, a short duration is preferred, 76% chose between six and 12 hours duration.
In the case of virtual events, sponsors definitely prefer to sponsor scientific sessions (82%) or opportunities that give visibility to the brand (82%).
Among the activities to make virtual events more effective, sponsors prefer short e-learning videos published before or after the event (60%), followed by television format scientific sessions with a professional moderator/presenter (50%), then Q&A sessions with key opinion leaders (48%) and also forms of gaming (escape room, quiz, etc.) (38%).
“From the analysis of the responses and from the dialogue that we carried out with company representatives, we clearly noticed a strong trend to favour the return to in-person events, or at least to some sort of hybrid formats. In addition, we noted that enriching virtual aspects of meetings with new engagement tools was also considered important,” explained Gaia Santoro, head of sponsorship unit of AIM Group International.
“With this in mind, we can predict that events next autumn will involve a move towards more sophisticated event features, which we are calling “an augmented event”. This combines some typical advantages of the online platform – such as access anywhere, any day and time and an expansion of the audience – combined with the strengths of in-persons events with an ability to involve delegates, transmit content more effectively and strengthen networking and relationships.”
“The pandemic will act as a gamechanger for the events market, where the experimentation, innovation, flexibility and courage evident during the pandemic, is now paving the way for new formats to evolve, adapting them even more to the specific needs of each target and client. The new formats are also drawing inspiration from different sectors such as TV, gaming, trade fairs, etc.), allowing the event organisers identify the best solution to obtain the desired results, changing not only the format (in-person, virtual or hybrid) but also the duration and schedule planning, the interaction among participants, the communication before, during and after the event.
“In short, we are seeing several positive signs that suggest that, once the pandemic is over, that events will emerge from the crisis stronger and even more effective,” concluded Buongiorno.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Thailand has ramped up local business events capability, boosted its Thailand 4.0 economic development target focusing on the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and launched their latest initiative, reviving international arrivals through Phuket.
The number of international MICE travellers dropped by 62.6 per cent in 2020 from 2019, while revenue decline was 68.2 per cent. Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) statistics for 1Q2021 show a 99.9 per cent plunge from full-year 2020 in both travellers and revenue.
Supawan: TCEB’s online platform has taken off, a large step in contributing to Thailand’s MICE recovery
“This year, we’re producing e-learning courses in MICE with various themes such as incentive travel, professional and sustainable event organisation, community development and English for MICE,” said Supawan Teerarat, TCEB’s senior vice president development and innovation.
TCEB implemented Thailand’s first E-MICE marketplace to give business events entrepreneurs and the supply chain more business opportunities through Thai MICE Connect into five regions to meet demand from corporates, associations and government organisations.
There are 16 categories and 59 segments from business events ecosystems and stakeholders. Currently, more than 10,000 suppliers, destinations, venues, organisers and service providers are participating, with viewership exceeding 150,000 in this second year.
“This platform can also help corporates or DMCs to plan their MICE programmes faster. Our Roadshow programme helps entrepreneurs, supply chains and communities from first-tier and second-tier cities to showcase their community for incentive trips, pre- and post-tours for meetings, conferences, exhibitions and festival events. Participants are taught how to promote their services and products and attract buyers,” Supawan added.
On the economic front, aviation and logistics and four other industries were targeted in 2020 through LOG-IN Event located in Pattaya. This year, LOG-IN Next will support all 12 strategic industries under the government’s plan. The expansion is partly due to collaboration with more industry stakeholders.
“Under the new phase, our collaboration for tradeshows in the strategic industries will be extended to other cities in EEC, such as Rayong and Chonburi,” said Nichapa Yoswee, TCEB’s senior vice president – business. “Our targets are existing shows which will be supported to expand their profile and new shows in these industries. They are eligible for extra financial support. Of course, we require overseas PEOs to team up with local Thai partners when bringing in or organising the shows.”
Thailand has also kickstarted inbound tourism with the reopening of Phuket on July 1. Seen as a fillip to corporate meetings and incentive travel, the Phuket sandbox model allows vaccinated visitors from low- and medium-risk countries to stay without quarantine or minimum duration. However, to visit other cities, they must stay in Phuket for at least 14 days. Foreigners must fly direct to and from Phuket with no transit in Bangkok if staying for fewer than 14 days.
If the scheme works, it may be extended to other cities such as Chiang Mai, Krabi, Surat Thani (Phangan, Koh Tao, Samui), Pattaya, Phetchaburi, and Buriram.
However, travel agents contacted said they don’t expect great take-up in the business events segment. They cited the application process and criteria – two weeks to obtain a certificate of entry from Thai embassy, two weeks’ prior stay in a ‘safe’ country, series of tests while in Phuket and quarantine on return home – is too onerous.
Alicia Seah, director of marketing communications at Singapore-based Dynasty Travel, said: “The pandemic has fuelled the desire to travel; however, there are additional cost factors such as mandatory quarantine, PCR tests for Covid-19 and high insurance costs to consider. These factors have deterred travel at this juncture.”
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