MyCEB’s new programme to attract events set for April roll-out

March 19, 2019

A new support programme replacing Malaysia Twin Deal XP – which ran from January 1, 2017 to end-2018 – will be announced in April.

The Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) shared with TTGmice that the new programme would be launched during the NTO’s annual roadshow in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenzhen, taking place April 15-22.

MyCEB readies its new support programme for launch during China roadshow

As with past MyCEB support programmes, the latest version aims to attract more international corporate meetings and incentive groups to Malaysia, while providing a boost to the nation’s agenda of attracting 28.1 million tourists to the country in 2019.

While details of the value-added support have yet to be revealed, travel trade players commented that “sponsorship” was necessary to compete for a key market like China.

Mint Leong, managing director, Sunflower Holidays, said: “I hope MyCEB continues to provide partial sponsorship for the gala dinner F&B. Cash support for procuring space for meetings and dinners can also help lower the overall cost, and would give Malaysia an edge when competing at the bid stage.”

She commended the Malaysia Twin Deal XP programme, which provided special cumulative rewards for international corporate meeting and incentive planners who met the criteria of bringing in at least 500 international participants.

Leong added: “I believe there are plenty of new opportunities to tap corporate meetings and incentive groups from China’s second-tier cities. Group sizes may not be as big as Beijing and Shanghai, but the smaller groups present an opportunity to promote the smaller cities in Malaysia.”

Oh Kin Tat, project director, KT Conference & Events, hoped MyCEB’s new support programme would be extended to reduce the cost of bringing in renowned international speakers to help attract more delegates.

“I hope there will also be a budget set aside to support the cost for simultaneous translation,” he said.

On new China opportunities, he said business events related to the agriculture sector was something for Malaysia to further tap into.

Francis Teo, head, convention centre at Setia City Convention Centre, suggested MyCEB include invitations to corporate end-users during the roadshows.

He said: “If we can meet up with end-users directly, we have a better chance of convincing them to hold their events in Malaysia.”

South Tangerang rises as alternative to Jakarta for mega Chinese events

By Tiara Maharani

March 19, 2019

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ice-bsd-city — ICE in BSD City (photo credit: Facebook/IndonesiaConventionExhibition)

South Tangerang, a city neighbouring Jakarta, could be an up-and-coming destination for big Chinese events, with industry players highlighting its proximity to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE) – the country’s biggest venue – as selling points.

Ryan Adrian, president director Indonesia International Expo (holding company of ICE) shared that the 19th Teochew International Federation Convention held at ICE in October 2017, with some 5,000 participants, was the biggest event from China so far. He is eyeing another big Chinese event in 2020.

ICE in BSD City (photo credit: Facebook/IndonesiaConventionExhibition)

ICE, located in BSD City, boasts 10 exhibition halls, a 50,000m² outdoor exhibition space, a 4,000m² convention hall divisible into four, 33 meeting rooms and a 12,000m² pre-function lobby.

The Indonesia Industrial Event Council said 25 per cent of member events in 2018 were held in collaboration with a China business partner or originated from China.

Irvan Mahidin, the council’s vice chairman, said target growth for 2019 was 40 per cent, with opportunities in the agriculture and raw materials industries.

Mahidin added South Tangerang was accessible by toll road from Jakarta and Bandung – in about 30 minutes – and exhibitors can easily transport goods from the airport or seaport to the hall.

“The local government is very cooperative in helping organisers, ranging from immigration to customs and taxation,” Mahidin said, adding that he hopes to convince exhibition organisers, especially from China, to relocate their events from the capital.

Stable HK room rates despite major hotel closure

By Prudence Lui

March 19, 2019

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Hong Kong’s industry is playing down the impact on the city’s room rates despite the closure of the 869-room Excelsior Hong Kong on March 31, and additional traffic driven by new infrastructure like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) and High Speed Rail (XRL).

China Travel Service HK Metropole International Travel Services’ deputy general manager, George Kai, said: “The closure of The Excelsior may have some impact, but it would not be dramatic given additional new supply. Moreover, visitors travelling through the HZMB are mostly same-day travellers, and the stronger renminbi means lower prices when converted into Hong Kong dollars. Although hotel rates may be outrageously priced during peak season, it is short-lived and the market has remained rational.”

Sincere International Travel Service chairman, Charles Ng, forecasts room rates for business events this year will be stable as more tour groups are switching to more affordable hotels in Zhuhai or Shenzhen with the improved accessibility by XRL and HZMB.

Ng said: “With thousands of new rooms coming online, hotel rates will be more or less the same as last year’s.”

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Tourism Board recorded 959,000 overnight MICE visitors from China, down 2.9 per cent compared to 2017. The board’s spokesperson commented: “The total number of hotel rooms is expected to reach to about 84,000 in 2019, an increase of 2,500 from 2018. We believe the new hotels will help stabilise hotel room rates.”

STR Global reported hotel occupancy and ADR for Hong Kong in 2018 increased by 1.3 per cent and 8.3 per cent to 87.7 per cent and US$234.70 respectively.

Garuda’s new Nagoya service likely to benefit corporate over leisure segment

By Kurniawan Ulung

March 19, 2019

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nagoya-oasis-21 — Nagoya overlooked by business event organisers; Oasis 21, one of its event spaces, in the foreground

Indonesia’s outbound agents are hopeful that Garuda Indonesia’s new four-times weekly direct service between Jakarta and Nagoya – launching on March 23 – will bring more business both ways.

Ari Ashkara, president director of Garuda Indonesia, believes that the new service to Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, Japan’s fourth largest city, will boost investment and trade opportunities in addition to attracting more Japanese outbound travellers to Indonesia.

Nagoya city view with Oasis 21, one of its event spaces, in the foreground

Rudiana, director of sales of WITA Tour in Jakarta, said this new route this would benefit Jakarta, Indonesia’s key business and administration centre where many Japanese companies are headquartered.

And with a flight schedule that arrive in Jakarta early in the morning, Rudiana predicted that the service would attract more business than leisure travellers. “In Indonesia, the most favourite destination for leisure travellers is Bali, not Jakarta,” he noted.

Like Rudiana, Pauline Suharno, managing director of Elok Tour, opined that the direct flight “will be very attractive for business travellers”.

As for the leisure market, Suharno hopes that the national carrier will launch competitive airfares to attract Indonesia’s outbound travellers. Otherwise, she added, Indonesian travellers are more likely to choose other airlines that provided more affordable tickets even if they are not direct flights.

Rudiana agreed, sharing that airfares would determine whether Garuda could win the market for the Nagoya route. If airfares were too expensive, said Rudiana, Nagoya is unlikely to attract leisure travellers as it is perceived as an secondary tourist destination in Japan.

“Tokyo and Osaka have been deemed ordinary by today’s Indonesian travellers,” he shared.

Seoul sweetens the deal for business events with Plus Seoul

By TTGmice

March 19, 2019

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

MyCEB’s new programme to attract events set for April roll-out

South Tangerang rises as alternative to Jakarta for mega Chinese events

Stable HK room rates despite major hotel closure

Garuda’s new Nagoya service likely to benefit corporate over leisure segment

Seoul sweetens the deal for business events with Plus Seoul

IELA wants to help female talent Power Up

MEHK rewards star agents from Asia with awards, fam trip

Sunway Resort unveils revamped event spaces

Big step forward for Tineri

Fusion Resort Cam Ranh welcomes new GM

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