UK-based travel and meetings engagement consultancy Festive Road has appointed Mike Orchard as the company’s senior travel management leader in the Asia-Pacific region.
In his new role, he will lead development of the business in the Asia-Pacific region across both the buy and supply community.
Orchard was formerly the global head of corporate travel and card at the Macquarie Group in Sydney. Other previous roles include vice president global supplier management at Carlson Wagonlit Travel in Singapore, and head of CWT Solutions Group Asia-Pacific, and HRG Consulting in the UK.
The Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau (PCEB) has appointed Tricia Loh as head of sales.
Before joining PCEB, she was the project manager responsible for developing a e-commerce business model for PG Mall.
Other companies where she has worked at before include Marcus Evans (Asia Pacific), and APAD Consultancy, as their sales and regional sales manager respectively.
Wellness programmes: As the island’s only all-inclusive spa resort, Fusion offers tailor-made programmes – that incorporate wellness packages, meeting services and F&B – to suit the individual needs of corporate groups. Group sizes should have no more than 10.
Fusion Resort Phu Quoc
The three-, five-, and seven-day packages aim to address every aspect of well-being through a combination of meditation, yoga, massage, taichi, spa treatments, fitness sessions, wellness consultations and nutritious meals and drinks. Fusion is also home to the island’s largest spa and wellness centre at 11,210m2.
Other support for corporate groups: This 97-pool villa property is located on the beach to the north of Phu Quoc island. Facilities include 20 treatment rooms surrounded by a pepper grove, steam and sauna, adults-only pool, health club and indoor and outdoor yoga spaces. A multipurpose meeting room catering for 100 to 150 people is slated for completion later this year.
Excursions can also be organised, including a bike ride to traditional fishing village Cua Can and visits to temples.
This story was first published in TTGmice May 2018 issue, as part of the cover feature. Access TTGmice electronic magazines by clicking here.
Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Wellness programmes: Navutu Dreams offers a range of programmes – mainly three- and five-day – that can be customised to suit groups. The resort has its own wellness team comprising a yogi/traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, yogini/holistic healer, and fitness coach.
Navutu Dreams
Programmes include detoxing the body and mind, yoga minibreaks and nature-based fitness. There are two yoga studios, and a spa and wellness centre with a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic and space dedicated to holistic healing and lifestyle coaching.
Other support for corporate groups: Housing 28 rooms and suites, Navutu Dreams can cater for groups with up to 35 guests. On the grounds are sprawling tropical gardens, three swimming pools, two yoga studios, and plenty of spots perfect for meditation.
Group transportation can be provided, with options for healthy group meal sets, holistic sessions, therapies, massages and detox programmes. Cultural tours can also be arranged, such as food, birdwatching, photography and spiritual tours, as well as visits to Angkor Wat and other remote Angkorian temples.
Contact: www.navutudreams.com
This story was first published in TTGmice May 2018 issue, as part of the cover feature. Access TTGmice electronic magazines by clicking here.
Location: Ipoh, Malaysia
Wellness programmes: The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat offers a variety of wellness programmes that range from brief stays of two days to longer, customised trips. Programmes offered take a holistic path to wellness by incorporating meals, exercise, as well as spa and wellness treatments. Retreat programmes include detoxification, weight loss, fitness, rejuvenation and longevity.
Garden Villa at The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat
On arrival, guests go through a personalised wellness consultation to ensure their objectives are complemented by an itinerary of appropriate activities so as to optimise their visit and time at the retreat. The hotel is able to handle group sizes of up to 15 people at a time.
The Banjaran is nestled in a 6.5-hectare valley cradled by lush tropical rainforest, geothermal hot springs, natural caves, cascading waterfalls and limestone hills. It is located a 15-minute drive from Ipoh City, or a two-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur.
Other support for corporate groups: The retreat features a collection of 45 luxury Garden, Water and Lake villas which accommodates two adults in each villa. For meetings and corporate gatherings, the meeting room can accommodate up to 20 people. Meanwhile, for private events and parties, Jeff’s Cellar’s exclusive ambience adds stylish appeal and extravagance to significant occasions and product launches held in limestone cave chambers.
Website: www.thebanjaran.com
This story was first published in TTGmice May 2018 issue, as part of the cover feature. Access TTGmice electronic magazines by clicking here.
Location: Yakushima Island, Kagoshima, Japan
Wellness programmes: Sankara Hotel & Spa is able to draw up bespoke wellness programmes for groups that want to experience the natural world – forests, mountains and rivers – that were traditionally considered the dwellings of gods. Ideal size of groups is between eight and 10 people, although the hotel can certainly accommodate larger groups. Organisers of the programmes recommend staying for five nights for optimum results.
Sankara Hotel & Spa Yakushima
Wellness guests will be able to take part in yoga and meditation sessions, art therapy, indoor or outdoor rock climbing, hot spring therapies, moon-bathing and traditional rituals at nearby shrines. The hotel’s spa provides therapies that make use of the natural environment. Guests are also able to partake in forest therapy, for as little as 30 minutes or for as long as 12 hours.
Other support for corporate groups: The property is the only luxury hotel on Yakushima, a UNESCO-listed island off southern Kyushu. The hotel occupies an elevated position with a terrace and outdoor pool overlooking the ocean. It has 24 twin-bed Samudra Villas, one 104m2 Sankara Villa Suite, three junior suites, and an expansive 126m2 Sankara Suite.
There are also two restaurants on-site that serve meals made out of local ingredients such as fresh seafood, seasonal fruit and vegetables. The venue also has a conference room and meeting facilities. Away from the property, guests can enjoy a range of water excursions like river and sea kayaking, stand-up paddle-boarding, scuba diving and snorkelling.
Contact: www.sankarahotel-spa.com/en
This story was first published in TTGmice May 2018 issue, as part of the cover feature. Access TTGmice electronic magazines by clicking here.
Location: Kandy, Sri Lanka
Wellness programmes: Santani has a specific programme for corporates that focus on corporate mindfulness. Named Inward Bound Training, this programme was designed for corporate groups and targeted at very senior-level groups of 10 to 15 people from the same company.
Idyllic infinity pool at Santani Resort and Spa
The main aim of this programme is to connect high performance teams at an inner level that will allow them to function better, as well as better manage their own teams. An expert in mindfulness, who is a former CEO of a public company, facilitates this. The programme also includes jungle hiking, spa treatments, yoga, and meditation apart from facilitated corporate mindfulness sessions. This programme can be customised from three to seven days based on a group’s needs.
Other support for corporate groups: Santani has 20 rooms and can accommodate 40 guests at a time. It is also home to an outdoor infinity pool, and the only spa in Sri Lanka with full hydrotherapy facilities and treatments that range from Western to Ayurveda.
The property also claims to be the only wellness resort in the world to offer fine-dining healthy cuisine, and features a bar that serves organic wines among other beverages. There is a fully-equipped theatre where presentations and workshops can be conducted, as well as screen movies. Excursions, such as a tea factory tour, can be arranged by the resort.
Contact: www.santani.lk
This story was first published in TTGmice May 2018 issue, as part of the cover feature. Access TTGmice electronic magazines by clicking here.
Image: Group shot at the Singapore Tourism Awards 2018
It was a wonderful night of celebration and congratulations for the seven distinguished recipients in the MICE category at this year’s Singapore Tourism Awards.
Organised by the Singapore Tourism Board and held on May 8 at the Fairmont Singapore, the gala award ceremony saw trophies presented for the following MICE categories:
Best Business Event Champion
Best Association Conference Organiser
Best Business Event Venue
Best Meetings/Incentives Organiser
Best Business Event Service Provider
Best Exhibition Organiser
Best Trade Conference Organiser
Mr Chew Ghim Bok, Singapore’s Bid Chair for the Rotary International Convention 2024, was named this year’s Best Business Event Champion.
Chew was instrumental in driving and securing Singapore’s bid to host what is likely to be the largest association convention ever to be hosted in Singapore – a turnout of more than 25,000 Rotary members from around the world is expected.
He managed to pull it off by forming a strong local organising committee and proactively garnering support and interest for Singapore’s bid from Rotary clubs in the region and among key bid decision makers from Rotary International.
The Best Business Event Venue award was presented to Singapore EXPO and MAX Atria for being customer-centric and offering a full suite of services customised to the needs of each attendee on multiple platforms.
Monetary Authority of Singapore, The Association of Banks in Singapore, and SingEx Exhibitions clinched the Best Trade Conference Organiser award for the Singapore FinTech Festival 2017. Held from 13 to 17 November, it was attended by more than 30,000 attendees from 109 countries.
The Best Business Event Service Provider award was presented to home-grown event technology start-up Jublia, which provided the technology solution – its proprietary Match 360° – for the Singapore FinTech Festival 2017.
Meanwhile, the IEEE Photonics Society Singapore Chapter was named Best Association Conference Organiser. The organiser achieved a number of firsts by staging a four-in-one event comprising the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Pacific Rim, OptoElectronics and Communications Conference, Photonics Global Conference and Photonics Global Student Conference 2017.
For Destination Asia Singapore, which clinched the Best Meetings/Incentives Organiser award for Philip’s Asia Pacific Customer Event 2017, its goal was clear; to have a dedicated team that continually exceeds the expectations of the client and its attendees, keep the customer satisfied and maintain the relationship for years to come.
The Best Exhibition Organiser recipient Asian Geographic Magazines, which organised the niche Asia Dive Expo (ADEX) 2017, was recognised for its conservation efforts and collaboration with international conservationists and scientists. Concurrently, the organiser engaged with the public through activities and programmes to educate them about building a sustainable future.
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 newly-opened Ritz-Carlton, Bangkok anchors the One Bangkok development with cosmopolitan elegance. Featuring the city's largest ballroom and a spectacular new penthouse suite, it delivers exceptional hardware and deeply authentic, soulful service for business and leisure travellers alike
Behind the imposing, Brutalist concrete that defines Zurich’s Oerlikon district lies a surprising secret. While its exterior honours the neighbourhood’s industrial roots, stepping inside Mama Shelter reveals a vibrant, neon-soaked world that is a far cry from its rigid shell
A polished urban retreat designed for business travellers, Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown combines thoughtful design, seamless service, and exceptional facilities.
