Seoul sweetens the deal for business events with Plus Seoul

March 19, 2019

Seoul_Experience_Booth_1 — More benefits for planners who bring business events to Seoul

The Seoul Convention Bureau (SCB) is adding benefits for business events in the city through its 2019 Plus Seoul programme.

It will expand the core benefit for international conferences and corporate/incentive groups respectively to 250 million won (US$220,737), from 150 million won previously, and to 200 million won, compared to 100 million won previously.

More benefits for business events through Plus Seoul programme

In addition, SCB has designed new customised experiences for MICE events.

To boost loyalty and brand exposure through corporate meetings and incentives, planners can choose, depending on the scale of their event, from various complimentary options, such as customised cookies with corporate logos, storytelling performances, bus wrapping, photo mosaic walls, K-beauty booths and video services to capture participants’ experiences in Seoul.

And for international congresses with over 1,000 participants, Plus Seoul helps to cover development costs for event apps and virtual reality experiences.

In addition to core benefit offerings such as welcome messages at Incheon International Airport, large conventions can qualify for other customised experiences including unique venue benefits, Seoul MICE Cards and special tour programmes, plus the popular Seoul experience booths on-site at events, where attendees can try on Korean traditional clothing and get travel recommendations during conference breaks.

Also in the rebranded Plus Seoul programme is an updated Seoul welcome kit for MICE participants. Inside the Korean traditional lucky pouch is a pair of reusable chopsticks to both enjoy Korean cuisine like locals and reduce the use of disposable ones. Recipients can also take part in a social media event by uploading photos of themselves using the chopsticks with the hashtags to into a prize draw.

Jihyun Kim, the new director of the MICE Planning Team at SCB, said: “We designed Plus Seoul with one main question in mind: ‘What can Seoul add to business events?’ Whether it be intellectual exchange, company loyalty, or just fun, we want to give meetings an extra boost.”

Kim added: “We are expecting to add more benefits from SMA throughout the year and increase the value of holding business events in Seoul.”

IELA wants to help female talent Power Up

By TTGmice

March 19, 2019

Power-Up-IELA-Women-2 — IELA's Power Up initiative includes a year-long mentorship programme for women with at least five years of working experience

Committed to increasing the involvement of women in leadership, International Exhibition Logistics Association (IELA) is launching the Power Up initiative for the career development of female talents in the event industry, including through a year-long mentorship programme.

In a statement, IELA said: “We want to play a key role in supporting young women to develop their power to succeed in our industry. There is indeed a need for an intergenerational exchange of experience and know-how, in personal coaching for a planned career development. We want to enable all efforts into creating positive energy and boost ambition.”

IELA’s Power Up initiative includes a year-long mentorship programme for women with at least five years of working experience

The IELA Power Up programme has three pillars for action: Inspire, Ignite and Mentor.

For inspiration, IELA will post videos and interviews with key women in the industry via social media channels and its website.

Ignite activities will include expertise workshops conducted during IELA Live events, leadership development programmes at IELA Academy, as well as organised exchange programmes.

In addition, the association will roll out a mentor/mentee programme, which will span 12 months. Three women members of IELA will be offered the opportunity to become mentees, each attributed an experienced IELA personal mentor.

Mentees will be accompanied by their mentor who will take into consideration their working environment, provide the tools for leadership development and empower their leadership skills, and give them assurance in the assumption of their responsibilities.

Female mentee applicants should have a minimum working experience of five years and female mentors a minimum of 15 years in experience.

With the industry still a distance from achieving gender balance in leadership roles, UFI research points to areas that need to be addressed.

Strengths of women include soft skills such as good communication and empathy, strong organisational skills and the capacity to multi-task. However, women are perceived to lag behind men when it came to networking.

Moreover, all respondents of a UFI survey, women and men, assigned self-confidence, technical know-how and power-related skills to men.

Gwen Kaufmann from Deutscher Fachverlag (Germany) commented: “Women clearly make up the majority of the workforce in the trade fair industry, but they only represent a minority of the leadership. Both men and women agree that women can deliver diversity with a more creative approach when it comes to solving problems, helping the industry to prosper.”

Sonia Thomas, COO at UFI stated: “Men and women have different skills, and are complementary, so the optimum is a mix of both sexes. We all must consider how to increase female representation at senior level by making the path to the top a little easier for women.”

MEHK rewards star agents from Asia with awards, fam trip

By TTGmice

March 19, 2019

20190307_mehk-top-mice-agent-awards — Top agents from MEHK's target markets, including newcomer Thailand

From March 6 to 10, 2019, over 60 agents from five markets – mainland China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand – gathered for an award ceremony and five-day fam trip.

This marked the seventh Top MICE Agent Awards Ceremony cum Mega Familiarisation Trip organised by Meetings and Exhibitions Hong Kong (MEHK), a division of the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

Top agents from MEHK’s target markets, including newcomer Thailand

The awards ceremony was hosted at the new Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel, said to boast the largest pillarless ballroom on Hong Kong Island with a size of over 1,208m2 and capacity for up to 1,200pax, in addition to a 16m-high vertical aquarium spanning over three floors.

As part of the fam trip, agents were shown two of the city’s new super-infrastructure, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the High Speed Rail Link (HK section).

Agents also went temple hopping with privileges, including a behind-the-scenes tour at Wong Tai Sin Temple and amulets as souvenirs.

To promote the city’s rich greenery offerings for MICE, agents were also brought on a Geopark boat trip and hiking followed by a seafood lunch at Sai Kung and Lamma Island, while some also experienced the Dragon’s Back hiking trail.

“In 2018, Hong Kong recorded close to two million overnight MICE arrivals, representing a year-on-year growth of 2.1 per cent. Shorthaul markets performed with a particularly strong growth rate of 8.7 per cent; as for the meeting and incentive segment, some markets recorded a double-digit growth rate including South Korea and our new strategic market, Thailand,” said Kenneth Wong, general manager of the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s MICE and Cruise Division.

Sunway Resort unveils revamped event spaces

By TTGmice

March 19, 2019

SRHS_Grand-Lagoon-Ballroom-Foyer — Grand Lagoon Ballroom Foyer

Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa has reopened its Grand Ballroom and event spaces after a four-month, RM54 million (US$13.2 million) refurbishment.

Roger Marcz, cluster general manager of Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, said: “For the past 22 years, we have played host to numerous local and international corporate events, meetings and social celebrations, and we are delighted to be adding a new chapter to our story, especially of our Grand Ballroom.”

Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa's revamped spces

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The 210m² Grand Ballroom overlooking the lagoon and Sunway City now sports grand crystal dome lights, smart lighting system and floor-to-ceiling windows.

The venue features a nine-metre-high ceiling and elevated stage equipped with high definition LED screen backdrop, alongside four additional LED screens on the front and side walls.

The ballroom can seat 2,000 guests in banquet setting, 2,700 guests in theatre setting and 1,400 guests in classroom setting. It can split into three separate rooms to cater for smaller event needs.

On 15 November 2018, The Economist’s Sustainability Summit Asia, with 150 attendees, became the first event to be held in the Grand Lagoon Ballroom since its re-opening. In a statement, the property said its ballroom has multiple international and local functions, weddings and banquet events confirmed for this year.

The 32 column-free meeting and function rooms measuring 30m² to 344m² have also been transformed with new carpeting, wall coverings, lightings and furniture, including its pre-function spaces and coffee break areas.

Modern gadgetry and technology include LED projection screens or an 86” interactive touchscreen TV with screen sharing and built-in whiteboard function which supports multiple devices, as well as the functionality to save the whiteboard content into a USB memory device.

The names of all function rooms have also been changed to Forum, Congress and Arena.

The Grand Forum and Grand Congress are made up of three and four combined function rooms respectively. Each has lagoon view and seats up to 300 pax in banquet setting and 330 in theatre setting.

Under the Arena range of rooms, Arena 4 offers an inspiring venue space suitable for brainstorming and workshops, with its panoramic windows overseeing the city skyline. For more private and intimate events, the individual function rooms can host anywhere from 22 to 132 people in a theatre setting.

Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, combined with Sunway Clio Hotel and the adjacent Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre, offer a total of close to 13,000 m² of function space featuring more than 60 meeting rooms. The convention centre also recently went through a refurbishment programme.

Big step forward for Tineri

By Pamela Chow

March 19, 2019

Event brief
For healthcare company Nu Skin’s biennial South-east Asia convention in 2018, Open Destinations was recruited to build an event app using its mobile solution, Tineri.

The app was to communicate the event programme, provide a chat platform, facilitate attendee sign up and feedback, as well as provide additional information on accommodation, the destination and new product details to upwards of 5,000 participants from across the region.

Challenges
The app had to integrate Nu Skin’s existing online content and corporate branding, and be made available in English, Mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese and Bahasa for the event’s diverse participants.

The large-scale convention challenged Tineri’s original design as a platform for small groups. It now had to be reworked to accommodate some 5,000 simultaneous users.

Tim Russell, business development manager – Asia, Open Destinations, shared: “(The most challenging aspect) for me was ensuring that an app originally designed for FITs and small groups could still work well with (thousands of) simultaneous users, and that our support team could quickly address any issues arising from this. We had a few sleepless nights leading up to the big event in July, as Nu Skin was relying on us to make the huge convention a success.”

Solution
After their initial meeting, Open Destinations organised two workshops with Nu Skin’s regional team, following which the first priority was reskinning the app with Nu Skin’s branding. Via iFrames, a custom menu feature was created for the company to present its own content within the app. New languages were added to the platform, and web sign-up forms were created. All other content and capabilities were then uploaded to the app.

Russell explained: “Tineri is a very intuitive solution and so we never need to spend a lot of time training our clients – we usually find an hour or so on Skype is enough to give them an overview.

“In the end, while we had a couple of minor glitches and outages – mainly in our chat module – we were able to fix these promptly and with minimum disruption, and Nu Skin were very happy with the product and the support team behind it.”

Key takeaways
The large-scale event expanded Tineri’s capabilities and opened up possibilities for high volume access. Russell said: “Dealing with large loads was our biggest learning; we now know that Tineri can comfortably handle thousands of simultaneous users.

“It also helped us fine-tune our multi-language delivery process so we can deliver the same content, to people travelling on the same tour or attending the same event, in several languages.”

These were especially crucial learning points for Open Destinations in continuing its “rapid growth in 2018”, said Russell.

He concluded: “I learnt that I have a development and support team that will run through walls to ensure our clients provide their travellers with a fantastic mobile platform.”

Event: SEA Nu Skin Live! 2018
Organiser: Nu Skin Singapore
Venue: Singapore EXPO
Date: July 12-14, 2018
Number of participants: More than 5,000

Fusion Resort Cam Ranh welcomes new GM

By TTGmice

March 18, 2019

Dawid Koegelenberg has been appointed general manager of Fusion Resort Cam Ranh on Vietnam’s south central coast.

The South African brings with him close to a decade of experience in hotel management in Asia.

Koegelenberg’s most recent role was at Paresa Resort & Spa in Phuket where he was general manager for five years. He has also held management positions at two other Thailand properties, Six Senses Koh Samui and Sarojin Resort in Khao Lak.

U Zenmaya Phuket gets a new GM

By TTGmice

March 14, 2019

Absolute Hotel Services (AHS) Group has appointed Yaowanarth Phothiprom as general manager of U Zenmaya Phuket.

Yaowanarth first joined the company in 2017 as general manager at Eastin Residences Muscat in Oman.

Prior to joining AHS, the seasoned hotelier spent over two decades working with properties such as Dusit Thani Maldives, Santhiya Koh Yao Yai Resort & Spa, The Sukhothai Bangkok and Chikusenso Mt Zao Resort & Spa in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture.

Celebrity Cruises aims to grow its MICE pie

By Prudence Lui

March 14, 2019

Celebrity-Millennium — Celebrity Millennium is the first ship this year to complete its revitalisation

Celebrity Cruises is looking to grow its MICE business in Asia, leveraging its US$500-million fleet-wide modernisation alongside pioneering unique onboard experiences to court more corporate groups.

Currently, business groups only account for less than 10 per cent of Celebrity’s overall business, a percentage that associate vice president for corporate meetings, incentives and charter sales, Lisa Vogt, believes still has “much room to growth”.

Celebrity Millennium is the first ship this year to complete its revitalisation

Vogt said: “Our penetration in Asia is still low, but we have seen the dividends after investing effort and time to attract incentives in recent years. For instance, a direct selling company from Hong Kong booked an Alaska cruise for 600 staff this June 2019.”

She added that there are many companies in Asia already conducting incentives on land, and urges corporate groups to “open their minds” to try cruising incentives because they are convenient and immersive experiences.

Corporate groups hailing from China and Hong Kong typically prefer shorter programmes such as a seven-night itinerary to the Caribbean or Alaska, but Vogt foresees that destinations like Ireland and Scandinavia will soon rise in popularity.

Celebrity Cruises has also lined nine vessels up for upgrades between 2019 and 2023. The US$500 million modernisation exercise will see event spaces being revolutionised and reimagined across the entire fleet, all in all making the ships more attractive for the corporate segment.

“We are updating entire areas, from furnishings and decor to technology. In terms of entertainment, we teamed up with American Ballet to offer classical ballet dancing experience at sea. This is unprecedented in cruise industry and we are the first cruise company to launch this. It’s more than a performance; ballet classes are conducted on board and it’s great for team activities, enrichment and education,” Vogt elaborated.

Global airfares expected to fall in April: CWT

By TTGmice

March 14, 2019

CWT Solutions Group forecasts global average ticket prices (ATP) for air bookings will drop to around US$673 by April, down just over 4% from February levels, as published fares correct from the sharp increase seen in the first two months of the year.

These findings were published in the third edition of its bi-monthly Air Trends Report, which uses a proprietary algorithm to predict changes.

The average price of airfares are expected to fall soon

The global ATP climbed approximately 6% month-on-month in January, and then a further 3% in February, to reach US$702. This was largely the result of airlines across the globe implementing new commercial policies and revenue management models, which pushed up airfares.

“We foresee a continued upward trend in the average ticket price through 2019,” said Christophe Renard, vice president of CWT Solutions Group. “One of the reasons is that more airlines are looking to adopt IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard as a means to generate greater ancillary revenues such as seat selection and baggage fees. Post-booking price tracking tools can be an effective way for companies to optimise the cost of expensive tickets before upcoming departures.”

Meanwhile, the usage of Online Booking Tools (OBTs) remains on upward trend as main OBT providers continue to improve the user experience, especially on mobile apps. Efforts are also being made to improve the content available through these channels. At the same time, corporate travel management teams are encouraging their travellers to book through OBTs and mobile apps.

OBT usage was stable at around 48% globally in January and February, after a 6% increase from October to December. It is forecast to rise again in March and April, with more than 50% of all bookings expected to be made through OBTs for the first time ever.

The report also predicts that travellers’ advance purchase behaviour will worsen in over the next two months. Stricter enforcement of travel policies as a result of year-end budget considerations and belt-tightening saw improved advance purchase behaviour in December, and this carried over to January and February – with around 47% of tickets booked more than 14 days prior to departure. With companies now relaxing travel restrictions, this is expected fall to 43% in March and April.

“In order to keep a handle on costs, travel managers are advised to stress the importance of booking in advance, either as a message displayed on the OBT or through targeted communications to individual travellers,” said Renard. “It’s also important to ensure that OBTs are properly set up to reflect the organisation’s travel policy, or to configure these tools with bespoke settings for each market.”

Melbourne lands largest-ever conference for Victoria

By TTGmice

March 14, 2019

Melbourne has been named the host city for the 2023 Rotary International Convention, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

The convention is the most valuable conference ever won for the state, and is expected to attract 20,000 Rotary members from over 200 countries worldwide. Convention events will be hosted across two venues – Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) and Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne & Olympic Parks.

Melbourne will be welcoming Rotary’s 114th international convention

Aside from injecting A$88 million (US$62 million) into the Victoria state economy, the convention is expected to create millions of dollars in economic spinoffs, including the most significant room block in Melbourne’s history to guarantee high occupancy levels for up to 50 properties in the city during the off-peak winter season.

Australian minister for trade, tourism and investment Simon Birmingham said: “Over the course of the four-day event, an extra 20,000 visitors will be filling up Melbourne’s hotel rooms, local restaurants and also driving visitation to the city’s key venues and attractions.

“Tourism Australia’s Business Events Bid Fund is helping to bring significant international events like this one to Australia. Importantly, these events often attract the type of visitors that extend their stay to regional parts of Australia and are also more likely to return for a holiday in the future.”

The bid was led by Melbourne Convention Bureau, and is supported by the Victorian and Australian Governments.