A rendering of the upcoming The Haven, Lagoi Bay Bintan
The Haven Lagoi Bay Bintan – a S$1.4 billion (US$1 billion) integrated resort comprising a hotel, condominiums, a convention centre and other facilities – is slated to roll out from 1Q2021.
The first phase comprises two towers and a club house, while a 250-room five-star hotel, a 3,000-pax convention centre and six towers of condominium suites in the subsequent phases are set to be completed by 2026.
A rendering of the upcoming The Haven, Lagoi Bay Bintan
The Haven Lagoi Bay Bintan is being developed by The Haven Bintan – an Indonesian company, subsidiary of The Haven Hotels and Resorts, Singapore and a member of The Superboom Group of Companies, Malaysia – along with contractors Total Bangun Persada, Indonesia and China Yunnan Construction Investment Holding Company. An MOU was signed in Jakarta yesterday by the trio.
Peter Chan, CEO of the Haven Group, said the convention centre would appeal most to planners based in Singapore and Indonesia, and added that the 26ha project is set to be the only “skyrise development” on Bintan.
He further highlighted The Haven Lagoi Bay Bintan’s “rareness” and “desirability” of boasting three waterfronts – sea, river and lake.
Chan is confident that arrivals to Bintan will grow exponentially when the new Bintan Resorts International Airport becomes operational by 2020, with numbers rising at a rate of 30 to 35 per cent, taking total footfalls to 3.5 million in the next five years.
(From left) The UFI Presidential Trio 2018/19: president Craig Newman, outgoing president Corrado Peraboni, incoming president Mary Larkin
The UFI Board of Directors has elected Mary Larkin as President of UFI for 2020, a decision made at the board meeting during the UFI European Conference in Verona (Italy).
As UFI’s incoming president, Mary Larkin will work closely with the incumbent president and outgoing president to make up the presidential trio, managing UFI at the highest level, and helping UFI continue on its path of global development.
(From left) The UFI Presidential Trio 2018/19: Craig Newman, Corrado Peraboni, and Mary LarkinThe UFI presidential trio for the 2018/19 term will therefore comprise of:
Craig Newman (Johannesburg Expo Centre, South Africa) president 2018/19; Mary Larkin, (Diversified Communications, Portland, US) incoming president; and Peraboni (Fiera Milano, Italy) outgoing president.
This decision becomes effective at the conclusion of the 85th UFI Global Congress, which runs from October 31 to November 3, 2018 in St. Petersburg.
UFI’s recent presidents were from Germany (Andreas Gruchow 2016/17), Russia (Sergey Alexeev 2015/16), Colombia (Andrés López-Valderrama 2014/15), France (Renaud Hamaide, 2013/14), and China (Xianjin Chen, 2012/13).
For the first time since 2004, Barcelona has claimed first place in the ICCA city rankings by number of meetings in 2017, knocking last year’s chart leader Paris down to second place.
Asian cities Singapore and Seoul remain at sixth and 10th position.
Barcelona (pictured) tops ICCA’s 2017 ranking list
Notable risers are Buenos Aires, jumping from 17th to 11th place, Budapest, jumping from 16th to 12th, and Hong Kong, jumping from 19th to 13th. Rome remains in 20th place for another year. Newcomers to the top 20 in 2017 are Tokyo and Montreal.
Since 2016 there has not been much change in the top 10 country rankings, apart from a minor shift in positioning.
As it has done for the past two decades, the US holds firmly to the top spot with 941 meetings in 2017, seven more than the year before.
Asian countries on the top 10 chart include China, which has dropped from seventh spot to eighth while and Japan retains seventh place for a second year running.
ICCA’s Top 10 Country & City rankings
ICCA captured a record number of 12,558 rotating international association meetings taking place in 2017, with 346 additional meetings taking place compared to 2016. This is the highest annual figure that ICCA has ever recorded in its yearly analysis of the immediate past year’s meetings data.
ICCA’s CEO Martin Sirk said: “In a world of disruption and unpredictability, the continuing growth in international association meetings is a welcome anomaly, but is not that surprising. We are still in a period of revolutionary change in terms of scientific and technological advancements, which are transforming traditional association fields such as healthcare and trade.
“To make sense of the tsunami of new data and information, association communities need to meet. Not just at their traditional, well-established meetings, but in new gatherings specifically invented to serve new academic fields or to reach out to new audiences. These are the pressures that we believe will continue to boost the sector for many years to come.”
Full ICCA statistics reports are available now to members only via ICCA’s Destination Comparison Tool. The rankings for all countries and cities will be released to the public in mid-June.
Kuala Lumpur-Singapore (KUL-SIN) has claimed the crown as the world’s busiest air passenger flight route.
The one-hour connection between the two neighbouring capital cities in South-east Asia topped the OAG Top 20 Busiest International Routes rankings with 30,537 flights in the 12 months to February 2018. Hong Kong-Taipei (HKG-TPE, 28,887 flights) placed second, with Jakarta-Singapore (CGK-SIN, 23,704) third, Hong Kong-Shanghai Pudong (HKG-PVG, 21,888) fourth, and Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur (CGK-KUL, 19,849) completing an all-Asian top 5.
Mayur Patel, regional sales director JAPAC for OAG, said: “Given the robust expansion of air passenger travel across Asia-Pacific and the fierce competition between carriers in the region, it is unsurprising that 14 of the world’s busiest 20 routes, including eight of the top 10 routes, are between Asian city pairs. This compares to two routes within Europe, two routes in North America, plus one route between North America and Europe and one route between destinations in the Middle East.”
Key results for Asia-Pacific from the OAG Top 20 Busiest International Routes, include:
– 14 intra-Asian routes were ranked in the Top 20 Busiest International Routes list, with eight being between cities in North Asia, four connecting cities in South-east Asia, and two city pairs bridging North Asia and South East Asia.
– Hong Kong (HKG) was the busiest Asian airport hub featuring in six of the OAG Top 20 Busiest International Routes, with Singapore (SIG) featuring in four routes. Two airports, Kansai (KIX) and Seoul Incheon (ICN), featured in three routes.
– Five Asian airports, Kuala Lumpur (KUL), Bangkok (BKK), Jakarta (CKG), Taipei (TPE) and Shanghai Pudong (PVG), featured on two of the global Top 20 routes. Beijing Capital (PEK) and Tokyo Narita (NRT) each featured on one route.
– The highest on-time performance (OTP) among Asian routes in the global Top 20 was KIX-TPE with 83%, followed by BKK-SIN (80%) and ICN-KIX (78%). The congested skies over Mainland China, which cause frequent flight delays and cancellations, provide an explanation for the two lowest regional OTP ratings, which were for flights between Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese airports: HKG-PEK (57%), HKG-PVG (55%).
Spiralling demand for air travel across Asia is underlined as 14 of the world’s 20 busiest air passenger routes depart from and arrive at an Asian airport; planes parked at Changi Airport Singapore pictured
The increasingly competitive nature of Asian aviation markets is a stand-out feature of this year’s Top 20 Busiest International Routes rankings, reflecting that some are still transitioning through a developmental stage.
All eight Asian routes in the Top 10 Busiest Routes feature at least six competing airlines, with three routes (ICN-KIX, HKG-ICN and HKG-SIN) counting eight carriers, and nine airlines battling each other on the CKG-KUL route. The Osaka-Taipei (KIX-TPE) route, which placed 15th, tops them all with 11 airlines competing for passengers.
While this intense level of competition offers impressive flight frequencies and competitive prices for consumers, it adds pressure to the operating costs and on-time perfomance of carriers, and may prove unsustainable over time. By contrast, more mature European and North American routes, such Dublin-London Heathrow (DUB-LHR), which placed 14th, and Chicago-Toronto (ORD-YYZ), ranked 20th, each have only four competing airlines.
Another highlight feature is the relatively high ratio of LCCs on some of the busiest Asian routes. Five intra-Asian city pairs on the Top 20 Busiest International Routes list count LCC penetration of more than 40%: KUL-SIN (43%), CGK-SIN (42%) CGL-KUL (47%), ICN-KIX (65%) and ICN-NRT (49%). Two Asian routes count between 30%-40% LCC penetration: BKK-SIG (31%) and KIX-TPE (30%). Three Asian routes, HKG-TPE, BKK-HKG and HKG-PEK are 100% operated by mainline airlines, with zero LCC penetration, while HKG-PVG is 95% operated by mainline airlines.
Published annually, OAG’s Top 20 Busiest International Routes are calculated by analysing the jet aircraft frequencies on international flight routes in the 12 months to February 2018. These are the world’s busiest trunk routes in terms of the volume of flights that operate on them. The data reveals that 14 of the Top 20 Busiest International Routes operate to and from destinations in Asia.
View the full results and download a copy of the full report here.
Raffles City Convention Centre has launched a new mobile application for meeting planners, designed to improve communications efficiency during events.
With this application, meeting planners are able to communicate directly with the banquet operations team throughout the duration of their event via a live chat function.
Raffles City Convention Centre’s Fairmont Ballroom
In addition, anticipating the common needs that may arise during any major event or conference, a curated list of frequent requests has been built into the application, allowing meeting planners to place such requests at the touch of a button. They include adjustment of air-condition temperature; addition of extra tables or chairs; projector or Wi-Fi connectivity, etc.
On the back end, the hotel’s banquet operations team is able to track all requests and ensure that each of them is attended to in a timely fashion. A report is also available to help assess which are the most frequent requests and measure productivity.
The 6,500m2 Raffles City Convention Centre offers 26 fully equipped meeting rooms and is complemented by two hotels – Swissôtel The Stamford and Fairmont Singapore.
The PCMA Education Foundation honoured three industry stars with 2018 Lifetime Achievement Awards and revealed winners of the 2018 Professional Excellence Awards last week on May 2.
More than 1,000 leaders in the business events industry attended the industry recognition event at the Marriott Marquis Washington, DC.
“(The) honourees and finalist each in his or her own way, has pushed the boundaries of their roles and harnessed innovation to advance their organisations and the business events industry,” said PCMA President & CEO, Sherrif Karamat. “They are the best of the best, and their accomplishments inspire industry veterans and novices alike.”
It is known that event registration is very labour intensive and time consuming, and for most event managers it is the one function of event management that they would want to outsource or automate.
Global event management software providers such as Cvent, SignUpGenius, Event Espresso etc. are all considered giants in their field when it comes to events happening outside of China, or events that may not target Chinese Mainland attendees.
Mobile payment platforms are important if an event organiser wants to attract Mainland Chinese attendees
But for events that do want the attention of Chinese Mainlanders, event management software must incorporate mobile payment platforms such as Wechat or Alipay.
According to a survey conducted by Ipsos in 2017, about 77 per cent of Chinese people use mobile payment services.
Statistics from the Payment and Clearing Association of China show that from 2013 to 2016, the number of transactions made through non-banking mobile apps increased from 3.7 billion to more than 97 billion.
In Hong Kong, where mobile payment’s penetration rate isn’t as high as that in China, these global event management software giants still have a competitive edge.
However, with more and more events in Hong Kong targeting attendees from the mainland, integration of event management software with Wechat or Alipay is now the bare minimum requirement for organisers to capture sponsors and attendees.
The global event management software market was valued at US$6.89 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach a value of US$12.51 billion by 2023, with much of the growth coming from China.
So why aren’t event management software providers flocking to form partnerships with Tencent or Alibaba? Perhaps it has something to do with their level of commitment in offering tailor-made solutions to Chinese clients. Most global firms value China as a market. Some may even have ambitious development plans for capturing the expected handsome growth in China’s business events sector.
However, the typical headquarter mindset is to bring as much revenue back from China as possible, while the correct approach is to show commitment to the Chinese market by investing capital, forming joint ventures, and going through the trouble of getting all the necessary licenses to not only accept the Chinese yuan but also the privilege to transfer funds across the border.
It is a lot more work and the process can be painful, but the reward can very handsome.
With over 20 years of regional event management experience in Asia, Roy Ying has held senior marketing communication roles in listed companies and organisations such as a trade & invest promotion agency, a chamber of commerce, and a professional institution. In addition to his current role as the senior corporate communications manager for a major blue chip company in Hong Kong, Ying is also a blogger, part-time lecturer and a contributing author to MICE magazines.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has appointed Raymond Chan as regional director, South-east Asia.
In his new role, Chan will lead the development and implementation of HKTB’s marketing strategies in the South-east Asian region. He will be based in Singapore, and takes over from Simon Wong.
Prior to this appointment, Chan was the senior manager, trade development for the South-east Asia region for the HKTB.
Chan joined HKTB in 2012 and has held different senior positions for marketing, public relations and trade development in Taiwan and the South-east Asia region.
Dusit Thani Hua Hin has appointed Pipat Patthananusorn as general manager.
A Thai national, Pipat brings with him more than 22 years of managerial experience in luxury hotel chains since starting his career in the sales department of Shangri-La Hotel Bangkok. Spells with Royal Orchid Sheraton, Four Seasons and Anantara Siam followed, serving as the executive assistant manager of the latter. He also had a stint as general manager of Pacific World Bangkok.
In 2008, he was elected to the Thailand Incentive and Convention Association’s executive board of directors as co-chairperson of the service development committee, a position he still holds.
If luxury event space in a choice location, bespoke service and stylish elegance rank high on the checklist, then the 491-room luxury hotel on West Beijing Road – in the cultural and business centre of the Jingan district – is a contender.
St Regis Drawing Room
Concept
Opened in May 2017, in time for ILTM China, the hotel organised a flow-around party and threw open its F&B outlets to luxury buyers attending the show. With 14 meeting spaces, totalling more than 3,000m2, of which the largest measures 1,400m2, it was the perfect opportunity to showcase its business events capabilities and mount an impressive debut.
MICE application
The exquisitely designed 1,400m2 open floor plan Astor Ballroom, which can accommodate up to 1,300 guests and is adjoined by a 368m2 foyer, makes it the biggest space in Jingan and among the top three in Puxi. The investment in the ballroom’s 95m2 LED wall projection system gives event planners the ability to create dazzling visuals and entertainment.
During its 2017 ILTM China coming-out party, the hotel closed off its second floor which houses Chinese restaurant Yan Ting, Japanese restaurant Seki-Tei and Bespoke – its contemporary international cuisine restaurant offering a tailor-made menu using seasonal ingredients – which became the after-party venue. Downstairs, live music wafted around the lobby and into Social, its international buffet restaurant.
If an event calls for an intimate space, the exquisite Drawing Room – with its beautiful teardrop chandelier – needs no other embellishment. Likewise, the St Regis Bar, serving more than 50 handcrafted cocktails – including the Mary Jing, its version of the Bloody Mary, which was invented at The St Regis New York – is another ready-to-use thematic venue.
Service
The attentive staff just seem to know how to make guests feel at home. I wandered into the Drawing Room one day, sat down to check my iPhone and it was nice to be offered a glass of warm water – it was cold outside – when I did not wish to order anything to drink.
A polished urban retreat designed for business travellers, Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown combines thoughtful design, seamless service, and exceptional facilities.
The five-star property excels in backing its expansive facilities with seamless service and personalised attention, setting the benchmark for luxury in Bangkok.
