Nang yai is a form of shadow play found in Thailand
The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) has helped local event organisers stage virtual events over the past few months since the onset of the pandemic which has decimated MICE activity.
TCEB’s assistance comes in the form of tools such as the TCEB MICE Intelligence Centre’s Virtual Meeting Space, a platform that accommodates up to 10,000 online participants in a single session.
Nang yai is a form of shadow play found in Thailand, one of the performances hosted by the Harmony World Puppet Channel
Nichapa Yoswee, senior vice president – strategic marketing and business development at TCEB, said: “TCEB is on hand to provide continuous support as events make the temporary transition from physical to online. The support includes a virtual platform for webinars as well as one-to-one engagement for exhibitions, so that attendees and audience can stay engaged, stay active, and also stay entertained with business events and world festivals.”
Beneficiaries of TCEB’s support include the Harmony World Puppet Channel (Harmony of World Puppet Festival), which addresses social issues through the art of storytelling. The online event attracted 6,164 participants from Thailand, Japan, India, Bangladesh and Laos. The audience tuned in remotely, clocking up 201.5 total watching hours over four days in April and three in May.
Fungjai and Nylon Thailand, the co-founders of The Bangkok Music City, also invited its audience to stay entertained while at home, by providing artist content online. Renamed the At Home Festival, the event reached a domestic audience of 120,757, as well as 1,828 people from 45 countries across the globe. Through live streaming on platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the event was able to reach concerts, pubs and theatres that are currently deprived of primary revenues and contact between content creators and the audience.
Another event, Thailand Toy Expo 2020, offered a new type of online experience through Virtual Tour 360 and Live Stream from May 28 to 31. More than 50 international and local artists used the online platform to present their latest collections, enabling fans to get in touch with their favourite toy brands and designers.
Meanwhile, mass participation mobility event Move Asia is working towards a virtual transformation that will be called the Home Marathon 10KM.
Companies wanting to ensure their employees are looked after and feel safe on the road when restrictions ease off should prepare now and consider what they can do to strengthen their duty of care
For the past three months, most countries have gone through a partial or complete lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, many employees have had to cancel or postpone business trips, attend conferences virtually and work from home.
Almost four months since the initial outbreak, governments across the world are starting to emerge from lockdown. To strengthen economic recovery, it is important to slowly restore travel and trade links safely. Some countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region have started to re-open business and relax safe distancing measures.
In early May, the Singapore Government also announced that it is working on guidelines with four other countries to resume flows of goods, services and personnel. This multilateral effort would allow essential cross-border travel for purposes such as maintaining global supply chains.
The future of travel
Domestic travel will likely be the first to restart and will be the litmus test of efficacy of measures by the local governments before they open international routes.
Gradually, governments will implement ‘travel corridors/bubbles’ to facilitate essential travel on certain routes. While tourist and business travel should eventually resume to pre-pandemic levels, the way we travel will now require a lot more planning and managing of risks in safety and wellbeing.
A balancing act between safety and resumption of travel
This starts with a need for organisations to thoroughly review and implement the necessary policies and procedures to balance the necessity of domestic and international business travel with the potential medical and security risks.
Decision making complexities that many organisations are facing include – when is the right time to resume travel and to which destinations; how to ensure their staff are adopting appropriate due diligence when assessing the risks associated with each trip; how to ensure their travellers are taken care of in the event of a medical or security incident while overseas, and what to do if travellers are symptomatic upon return.
It is important for organisations not to merely react to these problems. By adopting robust travel policies, organisations can proactively mitigate the risks, optimising productivity as well as ensuring compliance with Duty of Care obligations.
While the risk threshold for each organisation and the safety guidelines by the authorities of each location varies, there are some best practices we observed in supporting our clients where business travel is essential. It is about access to a dynamic and granular assessment of the medical and security risks of the destination, awareness of all travel restrictions, and the vulnerabilities of the individual traveller.
Organisations have to ensure a ‘mobile bubble’ for their travellers, which means putting in place a set of strict measures that shields the individual in transit, from personal protective equipment, to validated ground transportation or accommodation with stringent measures against Covid-19. Organisations also need to ensure compliance with certain medical regulations.
To this end, International SOS has partnered with the International Chamber of Commerce to launch an app called ICC AOKpass, with a view towards ensuring Covid-19 medical compliance during travel.
To help our clients assess the potential risks of their planned trips, we developed a Covid-19 country scorecard, which includes risk factors from infection rates to medical infrastructure. In some locations, there are also underlying in-country security risks because of the local Covid-19 situation.
We hence overlay the medical risk assessment with a security risk assessment of risks like xenophobia, reversals of restrictions, social unrest driven by growing economic and social grievances, general public panic, resource scarcity, security force actions, misinformation and more.
During the trip, equipping business travellers with tools like the International SOS Assistance App for round the clock medical and security situational updates, assistance and location tracking, ensures that they stay informed and supported if a situation arises. Our app is underpinned by our 26 Assistance Centres worldwide. One call puts the affected staff in touch with doctors, security and logistics experts, anytime and anywhere.
Upon return, organisations also need to implement necessary precautions like quarantine and medical pre-access screening procedures for returning travellers, in compliance with guidelines and standards outlined by local governing authorities.
Managing employee concerns and fears
It is also critical to manage and assuage the fears of the travelling workforce, which is likely to manifest in various ways – they might fear exposure to the virus while in transit, during meetings, or even staying in hotels.
Others might be fearful of the uncertainties and risks in other countries which can range from uneven relaxation of restrictions, international and local transport restrictions, xenophobia, anti-government protests, and access to medical care in an unfamiliar place.
The uncertainties about a global economic recession have also given rise to fears about job security. While employees might harbour concerns about resuming travel, they could also be hesitant of voicing their fears with their managers and organisations. Employees will be wary of how their reluctance to travel might compromise their job security or career progression.
In consideration of all these concerns, companies need to be prepared to support the travelling workforce emotionally and restore confidence that staff safety is their utmost priority.
This could involve running educational campaigns for employees to communicate the return to operations plan and organising employee Q&A sessions to address lingering doubts. Companies can also arrange pre-trip briefings to help their travellers prepare for the security or health risks in their destinations, either conducted by their in-house medical and security colleagues, or in partnership with workforce risk management providers.
Providing business travellers with 24/7 access to remote medical and security advice and assistance while they are away, would also be helpful in allaying employee concerns.
Preparing for the future of business travel
Ultimately, the resumption of travel does not rely solely on lifting travel restrictions, nor does it signal the end of the pandemic. The gradual easing of restrictions provides an opportunity for organisations to review their plans for business travel and help employees adapt to and be confident while travelling in a post-pandemic world. Organisations that implement the correct measures will have the greatest chance of success in returning to work.
Aditya Luthra is based in Singapore. He leads client engagements around Asia and Australasia, developing bespoke solutions in support of organisations and managing their travel risk mitigation strategies, policies and procedures.
He has overseen the team’s development of actionable intelligence to incident management teams and clients on the ground during crises and emergencies, notably during the elections and ensuing violence in Papua New Guinea (2017), the Resorts World Manila attack (2017), the Islamic State-inspired attacks in Dhaka and Jakarta (2016), in the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal (2015) and Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), and during the political turmoil in Bangladesh and Thailand (2013-14).
Informa Markets will move ConnecTechAsia – an Infocomm Media and Technology event organised in partnership with Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority – onto a virtual platform during the same dates, September 29 to October 1, 2020.
Conference delegates can expect to engage at live keynote, Q&A and breakout sessions during the three-day event, while the virtual exhibition floor will enable companies to showcase their vertical-specific products to registered attendees.
A screenshot from the ConnecTech Asia website
ConnecTechAsia, incorporating BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia, SatelliteAsia and co-located with TechXLR8 Asia, will thereafter turn into a 24/7, 365 days interactive marketplace.
Ivan Ferrari, event director, tech, media & entertainment Events, Informa Markets, said: “The permanent addition of a 365 days virtual platform to ConnecTechAsia’s offering will enable a seamless, powerful, continuous engagement within our industry and unlock additional, measurable value for audiences in the community we serve. I am convinced that this significant investment in virtual will bring about a fresh experience that they will appreciate and gain from.”
More details of the virtual format will be made available in coming weeks. This shift to a virtual event is in response to the dynamic situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, where travel and physical restrictions are still in effect globally.
ConnecTechAsia will resume its live event next year, from June 9-11, 2021, at the Singapore EXPO and MAX Atria.
Meetings and events taking place at The Athenee Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Bangkok, can expect to pay the standard venue rates even as layouts are set in accordance to new social distancing and stringent hygiene measures.
Under the new setup, each function space will only be able to accommodate approximately half the usual guest numbers.
The hotel’s Grand Hall sporting a social distancing set Up
New health and safety setups at the hotel includes temperature sensors, hygiene measures and crowd control designed for larger-scale events and groups, as well as enhanced hygiene considerations taken during F&B service such as the use of sanitary screens at the buffets and formalised arrangements for coffee breaks.
The Athenee Hotel has been recognised for all of the preventive measures and protocols undertaken during the pandemic, being the first hotel in Thailand to achieve the Safety & Health certification, which is endorsed by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. The hotel has also been certified by the Ministry of Public Health for its approach to the care of its guests.
Operator Marriott International has recently announced its Commitment to Clean initiative and the formation of a Cleanliness Council to drive new innovations and protocols.
Event management software company Aventri has rolled out its Aventri Virtual Event Platform, aimed at helping its clients smoothly deliver hybrid events using a single platform solution.
The Aventri Virtual Event Platform is fully integrated with the end-to-end Avenrtri platform, enabling event and meeting organisers to add a virtual component to any event. The solution will provide planners with a seamless flow of data, delivers a consistent user experience and eliminates the need for multiple vendors or solutions.
A sample of a personalised agenda on the Aventri Virtual Event Platform
Features of the Aventri Virtual Event Platform include:
Multiple event formats – Single session, multi-level track events, and multi-day event programmes are just some of the formats the platform supports. With the ability to host live, utilise pre-recorded videos and record event sessions, the platform provides the flexibility to deliver content the way audiences choose to consume it.
Customisable session experiences – Planners can allow attendees to enable video. They can also create personalised welcome messages, incorporate slide annotations, arrange handout distribution, manage Q&A’s, and enable public and private chat.
Real-time insights – Having one solution to deliver all their events gives organisers the power to report on hybrid, virtual and in-person experiences. They can gather insights on what sessions are most popular, with metrics around session dwell time and engagement. In addition, they can run reports across registration data, session attendance, marketing data and more.
Security – As a 100 per cent browser-based tool, there is no need to download software to join sessions. Built as a native part of the Aventri platform, the Virtual Event Platform provides the same infrastructure and security standards as Aventri’s core platform, including local in-region data centres, full TLS encryption for attendees, and SSO.
The Aventri Virtual Event Platform was created in response to more than 80 per cent of planners believing that virtual components will be added to all future in-person events, according to research conducted by Aventri in April 2020.
It is currently in beta with general release coming this summer.
From left: Jeanine_Dupigny-Nadir_Aboutaleb_640x400
From left: Jeanine Dupigny and Nadir Aboutaleb
New faces at The Hague Convention Bureau
The Hague Convention Bureau has employed two new international sales managers to focus on the city’s specialist markets; including new energy, impact economy, IT, technology and cybersecurity.
Jeanine Dupigny, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, will focus on business events acquisitions in the new energy and impact economy sectors. She brings a wealth of knowledge from the industrial development, petrochemical and tourism sectors, as well as experience working with voluntary and charitable organisations around the world.
Nadir Aboutaleb has more than nine years’ experience in the meetings and events industry, which has included time at leading venues such as the RAI Amsterdam. His new role will focus on the development of specialist events covering IT, technology and cybersecurity.
On these new appointments Bas Schot, head of The Hague Convention Bureau, commented: “Despite challenges facing our industry, there has never been a more important time to develop new relationships and promote destinations to key sectors in creative and personal ways.”
TMG adds virtual meeting expert to team
US-based association management company Talley Management Group (TMG) has added Derrick Johnson to its team as the director of event strategy and development, a newly-created position.
He has been tasked with helping clients adjust meeting formats in response to the impact of Covid-19, and will spearhead TMG virtual meeting initiatives as in-person meetings move to digital platforms.
Johnson joins TMG after serving as the executive director for the national behavioural intervention team located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Prior to that, he was the senior director of meetings for The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers.
He also holds the Digital Event Strategist credential from PCMA and is a Certified Meeting Professional. In 2019, Johnson joined the PCMA board of directors and is also on the executive board of the LGBT Meeting Professionals Association.
IHG adds a Crowne Plaza Resort in Saipan to portfolio
IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has signed a long-term agreement with Asia Pacific Hotels to take on the management of Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan, in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
The 416-room hotel will be rebranded as Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan in 2022 following a refurbishment, before adding a 116-room extension by 2025. Facilities include six dining outlets and a club lounge, four meeting rooms, a 300-person ballroom, a gym, multiple swimming pools, retail area and a 500-metre beach frontage.
This adds to IHG’s previous announcement that it has also taken on the management of the 318-room Fiesta Resort Guam, a hotel that will rebrand as a Crowne Plaza in 2021. The combined 850 room count makes the biggest ever conversion signing for IHG’s Australasia, Japan and Pacific Islands region.
The first Chinese resort from US-based luxury brand 1 Hotels has opened its doors on Hainan island’s shoreline in Sanya.
The property, 1 Hotel Haitang Bay, Sanya boasts 294 rooms, suites and villas, ranging from 62m2 to 1,300m2, all of which have been furnished with locally-sourced volcanic basalt stone and wood throughout.
1 Hotel Haitang Bay
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The sustainability theme is continued throughout the hotel, which features a solar water heating system, harvesting of greywater for back-of-house use and landscape irrigation, and collection and storing of rainwater for reuse.
Hotel facilities include seven F&B venues – all-day dining concept 1 Kitchen, Chinese fine-dining restaurant Green House, noodle restaurant Noodle House, lobby lounge Drift, rooftop lounge Sky Bar (opening soon), poolside bar The Sandbox, and The Juice Bar.
Other amenities are 630m2 of meeting facilities, 4,000m2 of garden venues, a Feature Pavilion, sunlit Sky Deck, an off-site farm, fitness centre, spa, and five swimming pools.
The property is located 40 minutes away from Sanya Phoenix International Airport, close to a number of leisure, recreation and entertainment attractions such as Haitang Bay Duty Free Shop, Fantasy Town, and Water Park.
Domestic and local-international businesses have been driving China’s recovery in May, with an auto show in Changsha – the capital of Hunan province – notching up record sales.
Liu Ping, founder, China Star, shared that three large exhibitions were held in Changsha in May, including the auto show which took place from April 30 to May 5.
The 2020 Hunan Auto Show ensured visitors and exhibitors underwent a strict health and identity check prior to arriving at the venue
Liu said: “SOP (standard operation procedure) for hygiene protection was implemented for the first time for the auto show and a record 2,391 cars, valued at around US$737milion, were sold.”
She added that local meetings and exhibitions have made up the bulk of business events, with support coming from provincial travellers.
Kris Van Goethem, managing director MICE, leisure and sport, Thomas Cook China, added: “Like most people, we have turned our energy in the short-term to look for local-international opportunities.
“As part of Fosun Tourism Group, we believe in a strong return of business, as China will continue to play an ever important role in the global market.”
Meanwhile, attractive pricing is helping to shore up domestic business demand.
Cheryl Siow, vice president, global sales, Greater China, Preferred Hotels and Resorts, said its hotels in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, which reopened in May, reported average occupancy rates ranging between 50 per cent and 70 per cent in Shanghai and up to 90 per cent in Chengdu.
She commented that the European Chamber of Commerce, especially Germany, is working with the Chinese government on incoming flights for foreigners, and pointed out that five-star hotel dining was now priced at lower-end establishment levels.
Apart from stricter hygiene and safety protocols, Siow pointed out that Preferred is adopting a flexible policy with free cancellation. Also, China Star’s Liu commented hotels were offering good discounted rates.
According to industry sources, China started allowing large-scale domestic events since April.
Liu commented: “Travel companies are still not allowed to organise trans-provincial travel, but individuals can travel everywhere in China, except for a couple of high-risk Covid-19 areas.”
She believes that the MICE industry will need time to recover, starting with a rebound in domestic business and followed by outbound and finally inbound.
“We believe it will take two to three years for the industry to return to normal,” she opined.
Sarawak-headquartered event management company and PCO, Place Borneo, recently launched its Meet Differently campaign, targeted at helping the events industry resume business in a safe format as soon as possible.
The campaign which runs up to 1Q2021, introduces six key ideas – Meet Outside the Box, Three’s a Crowd, Nature Calls, Go Virtual or Go Home, Be Picky, You Deserve it and Drink Responsibly.
Place Borneo aims to help corporate groups discover new and safer ways of meetings in the new normal
These ideas range from choosing exclusive venue buyouts and the re-engineering of meeting formats to choosing more remote locations and increasing more virtual elements in a physical meeting. Regardless, they are in accordance with the new norm for the industry in the aftermath of Malaysia’s Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), currently scheduled to end on June 9.
Mona Abdul Manap, founder and CEO at Place Borneo, shared: “Our campaign serves to inform our existing and future customers that we are ready to serve with exciting new ways of organising events along with maintaining health and safety of all parties involved by having strict government-approved Standard Operating Procedures at all events.”
The campaign is marketed through Place Borneo’s website, social media channels, and email marketing. A campaign video will also be produced and distributed online. While the campaign is currently domestic-focused, it will also be applicable for international groups once borders reopen.
Commenting on the campaign, Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak, said: “Our government sees business events as an integral growth to our tourism development in Sarawak.
“It is important for industry players to play a proactive role to develop and attract events and conferences to Sarawak. Coming up with unique new ideas such as Meet Differently will set the benchmark, and differentiate us from other states or even countries.”
Among the events managed by Place Borneo that have been postponed to next year are the Borneo International Water and Waste Water Exhibition and Conference 2020 and the Miri Country Music Fest. The International Primatological Society Congress has also been postponed from 2022 to August 2023 because of the pandemic.
Several security challenges for corporate travellers have emerged in the wake of Covid-19
Against a backdrop of an exponential rise of Covid-19-related security cases, International SOS has raised three emerging security challenges that organisations must be aware of as lockdowns are relaxed.
These come alongside underlying security issues that the pandemic has and will continue to exacerbate.
Several security challenges for corporate travellers have emerged in the wake of Covid-19
International SOS identified social unrest and petty crime as among the issues to watch, a result of severe worldwide economic downturn caused by large-scale and prolonged restrictions on mobility, disruption to production and supply chains, and closure of businesses.
Anti-government sentiment follows next, driven by perceived poor governmental responses to the pandemic as well as high unemployment levels, potentially prompting unrest or challenges to leadership, particularly in locations with polarised societies or those with major political oppositions.
The third security challenge is xenophobia. International SOS noted that an increase in nationalistic trends has been accompanied by a rise in xenophobia in some locations, targeted at those who are falsely seen as spreading the virus or having privileged access to medicine and food supplies.
James Bird, security director, intelligence and operations at International SOS, commented in a statement: “Up to 75 per cent of our security cases have been Covid-19-related in recent months, with total cases rising to double the amount we’d normally expect to see each month. Locations previously considered low-security risk are experiencing new emerging risks. Many countries will also find that the pandemic environment exacerbates underlying or pre-existing security concerns. These are notably associated with economic inequality and political polarisation, which will fuel second-order security consequences.
“It is clear that security teams will play a critical role when transitioning to a ‘new normal’ workplace, as lockdown measures in many nations start to be relaxed. Visibility of the new security status in the current environment will be vital for the return to safe and sustainable operations.“
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Aditya Luthra is based in Singapore. He leads client engagements around Asia and Australasia, developing bespoke solutions in support of organisations and managing their travel risk mitigation strategies, policies and procedures.
