I Prefer Planner is designed to incentivise and reward meeting and event planners
Preferred Hotels & Resorts has launched I Prefer Planner in Asia Pacific.
Effective immediately, corporate travel buyers and planners across the region who book group and incentive travel at any of the more than 700 participating I Prefer hotels and resorts around the world are eligible to earn five points for every US$1 spent on actualised room revenue for group meetings and events.
I Prefer Planner is designed to incentivise and reward meeting and event planners
To qualify, event bookings must include a minimum of 10 rooms nights or more at participating I Prefer properties. Upon approval, points will be added to the planner’s I Prefer account, which they will be prompted to create if an account does not already exist.
Points can be immediately redeemed for cash-value Reward Certificates in denominations of USD/GBP/EUR 50, 100, 250 or 500, which are accepted at all participating I Prefer properties worldwide.
Rewards certificates do not expire and are valid until redeemed, and 500,000 points is the equivalent of US$1,000 in cash-value Reward Certificates that can be used towards room nights and other on-property expenditures during future bookings at any participating property.
Bookings must be made through Preferred Hotels & Resorts channels, up to a maximum of 500,000 points (equivalent to US$100,000 in room revenue) awarded for a single event. Planners can claim earned points for eligible events by visiting IPrefer.com/Meetings and submitting their invoices.
Preferred Hotels & Resorts first introduced I Prefer Planner to US-based meeting planners in 2015, and implemented the programme in Europe in 2016.
Rooms Because of the heritage building’s conservation limitations, no two of the property’s 138 rooms are the same. Each room is filled with exquisite furnishings, including a strikingly regal velvet headboard, and the interiors follow one of two colour themes: peacock turquoise and red velvet.
I stayed in The Terrace decorated in the red velvet theme, complete with plush armchairs and a private balcony peering into the hotel’s five-foot way. Daylight flooded the chamber, presenting a lighter vibe than the more romantic rooms of Duxton.
Six Senses Maxwell
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Six Senses Maxwell
Suite
Cook Tras Social Library
Rose Bar Lounge
Still, similar to Duxton in continuing the brand’s wellness messaging, Maxwell’s rooms are stocked with a small collection of therapeutic equipment, such as an Oh Ball wooden foot therapy ball, as well as dried fruits and nuts to snack on.
The bathroom featured a European-style multi-fixture layout, including a walk-in rain shower and a free-standing clawfoot bathtub.
MICE facilities
On the ground floor is a collection of inimitably charming meeting and dining spaces. The Cook & Tras Social Library transports one to a classic English gentlemen’s club, where sitting rooms can be partitioned according to the needs of a private event or small meeting.
Deeper into the shophouse is a beautifully decorated Rose Room, a boardroom that can accommodate up to 14 people. For smaller meetings and fun gatherings, groups can convene to the ladies’ brunch-styled Rose Lounge & Bar, stocked with champagnes, Rose Bellini and other sweet bubblies; or the spirits bar Garcha’s modelled after a dapper cigar room.
Other facilities
On the roof of Six Senses Maxwell sits a lap pool and lounge spaces with a unique view of neighbouring shophouse-turned-offices. Companies with an eye for wellness can make use of the indoor gym, spa pods and the rooftop edible garden and bar.
The all-day dining Murray Terrace Brasserie, named after the building’s original name in 1929, reflects the aesthetic of a classic French restaurant. It proffers a private dining space that can include a chef’s table experience for extra spice on top of a team meeting.
Guests with a sweet tooth can keep an eye out for the Ice-Cream Bike every afternoon along the five-foot way outside Murray Terrace Brasserie. The cart proffers an assortment of unique ice cream and sorbet flavours made with fresh local ingredients, complimentary to guests.
Service
The multi-ethnic staff are all warm and inviting. The manager at Murray Terrace Brasserie was eager to strike up conversations with guests, whether about the food and drink or about introducing new restaurant crew.
Guests who would like an element of local experiences can choose from activities arranged by the hotel, from morning yoga to a tour of the Tiong Bahru estate. I attended a relaxing Chinese tea appreciation session hosted across the street at Yixing Xuan Teahouse, where I gleaned a greater appreciation of premium Chinese teas and their health benefits. Guests can also head to the Duxton property to enjoy a different range of activities.
Verdict
Six Senses Maxwell is an exquisite retreat that provides a comforting ease and a host of diverse and authentic experiences. Planners or companies with a penchant for European nostalgia will find the regal meeting spaces here a welcome deviation from the typical meeting space.
A rendering of the upcoming DoubleTree by Hilton Pontal Porto Alegre
Brazil: DoubleTree by Hilton plants first hotel in the country
Hilton and Atlantica Hotels have announced the signing of a management license agreement to develop and manage DoubleTree by Hilton hotels in Brazil, with the first DoubleTree by Hilton hotel planned for Porto Alegre.
Scheduled to open in 2021, the 141-room DoubleTree by Hilton Pontal Porto Alegre will be located at Padre Cacique Avenue, and will form part of a large complex which includes a shopping mall and office tower. The hotel will have over 900m2 of meetings and events space.
US: Salt Lake City betters infrastructure to attract more corporate business
Salt Lake City, in the state of Utah, is planning several business events infrastructure in the pipeline amid an economic boom.
Projects include the US$3.6 billion redevelopment of the Salt Lake City International Airport, set to begin operations in 2020. In addition, a 28-storey convention hotel is expected to break ground later this year and bring more than 700 rooms and 5,760m2 of additional meeting space to the city when it opens in 2022.
Salt Lake City’s other meetings offerings include the Salt Palace Convention Center in the heart of downtown with approximately 92,900m2 of exhibit, meeting, ballroom and pre-function space; the Mountain America Expo Center 26km south of Salt Lake City International Airport; and luxury hotels such as The Grand America Hotel with conference space for up to 3,000 guests.
UK: UFI’s European Conference goes to Birmingham
UFI’s 2019 European Conference will soon take place in Birmingham during May 15-17.
Themed The Organisers’ Future, the event will focus on what’s in store for organisers in Europe and beyond. It will cover global opportunities from a European perspective, as well as focus on the US, China and Russia.
The opening keynote session will feature broadcaster Robert Peston, and former chief of staff to the Brexit secretary Nick de Bois, who will host a Q&A with delegates on Brexit and its consequences for the economy.
Other speakers include Easyfair’s CEO and founder Eric Everard, AMR International (UK)’s Denzil Rankine, and Event Tech Live founders Adam Parry and Katie Crocombe.
There will also be two co-located events: the Digital Innovation Forum taking place on May 15, focusing on real-life cases, problems and benefits of implementing digital innovation, and the Operations and Services Forum taking place on May 14-15, which will be looking at different forms of smart technology that are currently in use to optimise operations.
Michael McCormick is stepping down from his role as executive director and COO of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) to pursue other opportunities.
McCormick took on the role of executive director and COO at GBTA in August 2009, working to expand the organisation and build its presence internationally. During that time the GBTA said it tripled its membership and doubled its operating revenues, as well as assumed a more global perspective.
Michael McCormick
Scott Solombrino, formerly the president of the GBTA Allied Leadership Council, will step into the role, with McCormick remaining on in an advisory capacity to ensure a smooth transition.
Solombrino also served as president and CEO of Dav El / Boston Coach Chauffeured Transportation Network for 43 years until recently. He was also the co-founder and four-term past president of the National Limousine Association and, in addition to serving as the president of the GBTA’s Allied Leadership Council, he has also been a member of its Board of Directors, holding both positions for more than 20 years.
Dorothy Dowling, chief marketing officer and senior vice president at Best Western Hotels & Resorts, will take over as president of GBTA Allied Leadership Council. She previously served as the council’s vice president.
Qantas has promoted its CFO, Tino La Spina, to the post of CEO of Qantas International, following the recent resignation of previous chief, Alison Webster.
Vanessa Hudson, who is currently the group’s chief customer officer, will move to the role of CFO. A process to appoint a replacement chief customer officer will start shortly.
These changes will take effect from October 1, 2019, allowing La Spina to close out the current fiscal year through to annual reporting. From mid-May, Hudson will be CFO designate and will work closely with La Spina to ensure a smooth handover.
Narendra Kumar will remain acting Qantas International CEO until the transition is completed.
All three roles will continue to report to Qantas Group’s CEO, Alan Joyce.
The six-month-old Restaurant Jag is the brainchild of Michelin-star chef Jérémy Gillon and managing director Anant Tyagi.
Tucked among Duxton’s shophouses, the fine-dining restaurant presents a menu built around 40 herbs – air-flown from the mountainsides in Savoie, France – paired with seasonal ingredients.
Restaurant JAG
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Dining room
Lounge
Bouleau, mushroom, foie gras
For instance, bouleau is the star in a mushroom and foie gras dish; carvi garnishes a plate of lamb and purple artichoke; while sureau can be found in a white chocolate-and-beetroot dessert.
The dining room seats a maximum of 26 guests. For corporate buyouts of the space, lunch will cost S$2,500++ (US$1,840) and dinner S$5,000++.
A bar on level two puts the spotlight on cocktails made from the same 40 herbs handpicked by Gillon, in addition to whiskeys, gins, sakes, and over 230 types of wines.
The bar has a separate entrance, so two separate buyouts are also possible. Seating capacity in the lounge is 23, but it can be customised to suit the event type to accommodate up to around 40 pax.
For buyout of the whole venue, afternoons would cost S$4,000++, while prices in the evening start from S$7,500++.
For corporate and private bookings, enquiries can be made at (65) 3138 8477.
Designated as one of Thailand’s five key MICE cities since 2013, secondary city Khon Kaen is on track to live up to the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau’s (TCEB) expectations of evolving into a more well-rounded business event destination.
Khon Kaen was chosen for its strategic location, close to the Indochina and Mekong Subregions, both of which hold “bright futures” for the Thai city’s business events sector, Chiruit Isarangkun Na Ayuthaya, president of TCEB, said. In addition, the north-eastern region of Thailand comprises 19 provinces and one-third of the country’s population, which also represented “huge room for business opportunities”.
The up-and-coming Thai city of Khon Kaen has both the hardware and software to handle corporate groups
“It is our policy and mission to grow the MICE industry, to help distribute income to regional areas apart from Bangkok,” he added.
As such, TCEB’s current marketing activity for Khon Kaen is centred on promoting the up-and-coming Thai city’s capabilities through roadshows held in Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
“TCEB has been leveraging MICE shows in neighbouring countries as a platform for the city to gain exposure in these potential markets. Since last year, Khon Kaen city officials have joined us at roadshows,” Chiruit said.
In addition to roadshows and relevant marketing activities, TCEB has also launched a guidebook, which can be used as a marketing tool for the city by DMCs and suppliers.
Since the opening of Khon Kaen International Exhibition and Convention Centre (KICE) in 2017, a number of shows have been held. For example, the Khon Kaen Coffee Bakery Ice-Cream & Franchise is a cloned event from Bangkok that attracted around 10,000 delegates from both Laos and Thailand in August 2018.
From February 28 to March 3 saw the 2019 E-San Industrial Fair take place. The largest show for industrial and agricultural machinery in the country’s north-east also saw the participation of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in the form of pavilions. The three countries, and China, also sent trade missions who visited the show for business talks.
“All these events are proof of Khon Kaen’s location as a gateway of business into the Indochina region,” Chiruit said. He added that another B2C event, by the Thailand Chamber of Commerce, would also be relocating its fair to Khon Kaen for the first time.
The Thai city has also expanded its repertoire from exhibitions to the conferences and meetings segment.
For instance, the city played host to the PATA Destination Marketing Forum 2018 in November. The event welcomed over 300 delegates, and comprised fam trips which showcased what other activities the city could offer for corporate groups.
According to ICCA statistics, Khon Kaen hosted seven international conferences in 2017 and 2018; attracting around 2,600 delegates. Previously in 2015 and 2016, Khon Kaen only hosted one international conference per year.
Aside from KICE, other business-ready hardware Khon Kaen offers include several hotels with facilities capable of hosting meetings.
The Pullman Khon Kaen Raja Orchid has a ballroom that can hold 1,800 pax theatre-style, while Charoen Thani Khon Kaen has a similar space that can hold 1,300 pax theatre-style. Each property also features 10 breakout rooms, and both have hosted international conferences before.
Elsewhere in the city, Central Plaza Khon Kaen has a hall capable of hosting 3,000 pax theatre-style, and is also connected to a shopping centre. There are also smaller properties that offer six to 10 meeting rooms for smaller-sized groups of between 250-300 pax.
When asked about the difficulty in marketing secondary cities, Chiruit shared: “The challenge is how to convince event organisers about the readiness of such a destination, especially when it’s less well-known when compared to the other more popular Thai destinations of Phuket, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.”
He added that event planners also had to be assured the city has infrastructure and facilities that were business events ready, and are able to cope with the scale of events, especially international ones.
In Khon Kaen’s case, Chiruit reiterates that the up-and-coming Thai city is definitely business events capable.
Rubel Miah has joined the four-star Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral as general manager.
The hospitality veteran has 15 years of experience under his belt, having embarked on his career as a sales manager at the Novotel Peace Beijing. This was followed by a three-year stint with the Sofitel brand in China, before moving on to Sofitel Saigon in Vietnam as director of sales & marketing where he spent two years.
The French national then joined the pre-opening team of the Sheraton Chongqing Hotel. In 2012, he moved to Bangkok and joined Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit, A Luxury Collection Hotel, as director of sales & marketing. This led to his eventual appointment as hotel manager, a position he held for three years before moving to Malaysia.
In today’s exciting and ever evolving digital landscape, the business meetings and events industry has to keep reinventing itself to stay relevant and innovative. We have to adopt creative ways to engage our audience and build sustainable value for the future. Some of the important and key questions we need to ask ourselves include these:
How do we create more purposeful events with innovation and inclusivity?
What kind of meaningful moments can we offer our audience and make our events and meetings powerful, impactful and memorable?
How can we best incorporate new technology such as AI, to better engage our clients and foster greater interactions amongst them?
How do we achieve strategic synergies with blending design and digital to produce spectacular user experience? What ideas can we borrow from other industries that can be applied to events and meetings?
What are the key global trends and developments in event spaces and immersive experiences that we need in order to stay ahead of the curve?
How do we get wired for the future? Wired for growth, to the right community and for authenticity?
How can you build greater rapport with your online community?
As our customers demand a “return on engagement”, and to ensure that they derive optimal value from their participation in the business events, it is imperative for us as organizers to plan and execute a well-designed interplay of online process and onsite experiences that represent a perfect blend of design, digital and community.
We are pleased to present SMF2019: Wired for The Future, SACEOS annual flagship event and most respected platform for the industry to gain deeper insights and true stories on journeys taken by rising stars and luminaries from both core and adjacent industries. SMF2019 (www.smfconference.org) will present a high value content program and a focused discussion on design, digital and community engagement for tomorrow’s business success. Presenters will share strategies and road maps on game changing ideas and how the industry can be wired for future success.
Here is a glimpse of what to expect at the event. SMF2019: Wired for The Future (25-26 July 2019, Singapore) will be an immersive experience for all participants, to model what the event of the future will be like.
The organizing team at SMF2019 invites professionals in the business meetings and events industry as well as those from the related fields of travel, hospitality, event venue and destination operators to join in this exciting journey to dream, act and grow as an ecosystem of dreamers and builders of the future. At this platform, discover new opportunities to collaborate with key industry Associations, technology partners and all relevant stakeholders from the industry.
SingEx Venues issued a S$50 million (US$36.9 million) tender proposal to STB for the venue management of Singapore Expo. What convinced STB to pick SingEx again?
As a product, Singapore Expo started off with an exhibition focus. We need to bear in mind what attendees and organisers’ changing needs and expectations are. It’s (no longer) just about a space for play, but it has to move towards a solutions focus.
A key point that I hope worked in our favour was a very clear demonstration that we know the business well; we know what the undercurrents, trends and opportunities are; and that we are moving towards (providing) a suite of solutions that (anticipates and meets) the unmet and varying needs of our customers.
Aloysius Arlando
What does this mean for SingEx’s direction going forward?
Being the incumbent, we don’t take competition lightly. That’s why we need to ensure that we are customer-focused, understand the customer journey well, know the marketing and operating environment and then we can establish a suite of solutions that cater to the customers’ and their customers’ needs.
We now try to understand why our clients want a certain design, and what objectives they’re trying to achieve. We’ve become a business event consultant of sorts, and we’ve put in certain investments based on our customers and the feedback we received.
We are also applying some of our learnings – rethinking how the F&B scene should be like – in some of the new services we are rolling out.
Venue management has changed with the evolution of the business events industry. What trends are dominating the market now?
We have new industries coming up and emerging regional opportunities led by burgeoning economies in South-east Asia. Also, because of digital disruption, industries are intersecting more than ever.
This is going to lend itself very well to new events, event design and event platforms, in order to cater to the varied needs of event attendees.
How is SingEx responding to this?
This is where we believe in bringing different communities – the core and adjacent communities – together, to create “aha” and “wow” moments. This is how we designed the FinTech Festival as a platform for the intersection of industries.
You’ve spoken about the festival concept and events “opening up” – is this the future of trade exhibitions?
I think we need to demystify “festivalisation”. It’s very easy to say it means “to spice things up”, but it’s not about being frivolous. The spirit of festivalisation is to activate the senses – whether through visual discourse, physical touch or music – so that the engagement is not just a mono-experience. It’s to make the attendee feel shiok (great).
It’s about what the customer is trying to achieve, and what will make it memorable for their customers. Typically, they have two objectives: to expand their network and have a taste of what the destination has to offer. When you blend business and destination appeal, it collectively becomes an experiential arrangement.
It’s about the different ways to ensure the engagement is welcome. Whether it is done by festivalisation or a more traditional way, it depends on what the event objectives are.
For example, we introduce things like all-day dining, where we let the customer decide when to eat and how much to eat. Food is a conversation starter, and from this simple application, it helps to foster exchange and get conversations going.
What critical concerns are you hearing from the industry?
The baseline provision of services has risen. Merely providing the space and the key to the client is no longer going to cut it. Eight years ago, everybody was talking about free Wi-Fi as the rage; now, it’s commonplace and expected, like electricity.
As clients get more exacting and sophisticated, what is the baseline now?
Key considerations are Wi-Fi, F&B, flexible spaces and providing a range of services. They’re also looking into community engagement and social responsibility – and soon, these are going to be what we call “the new basics”.
What else? That will depend on the operating environment. Some can be plug and play, but in more advanced economies like Singapore, for example, just having a transactional moment is not going to be enough. You need to have the space and the programme to facilitate collaboration, workshops and labs on site.
Tell us about your plans as incoming president at SACEOS. What changes can the trade look forward to with your involvement?
My main objective is to build on the good work and effort that’s been put in by the exco of today and yesteryears. Moving forward, it’s important to look at what key factors are at play in developing the industry – like communities, technology, capabilities, ecosystems and new businesses that are emerging.
The way forward cannot be done by ourselves; it’s a partnership with government agencies and global associations.
I am working on how we can stay connected to these key associations, and build up Singapore as an incubation or pilot-testing base for these associations to reach out to the Asia-Pacific region.
This will also provide business opportunities for our members. Now, it’s about making sure that we can rally the different sectors of the industry to be a force to be reckoned with.
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