As PATA Travel Mart (PTM) marks its 40th edition this year since its 1978 inception in Manila, PATA CEO Mario Hardy concedes that change is imminent to this annual core event, especially in the face of growing competition from the rising number of travel tradeshows in Asia-Pacifc.
While lauding the 40-year existence of the show as its “greatest achievement”, Hardy believes the time has come for PTM to transform itself in order to stay relevant and unique moving forward.
Mario Hardy
The transformation is currently a work in progress, the PATA chief revealed. “There are ideas but we haven’t finalised what PTM will be like in the future,” he added. “We know it has to change and we have to do some significant changes to the format because there are too many similar shows already.”
Meanwhile, building PTM as a platform of “knowledge sharing” is what Hardy has strove to achieve, with seminars, workshops and forums underscoring the tradeshow in recent years.
For PTM 2017, which will be held in Macau from September 13-15, the Travolution Forum Asia will focus on technology and digital marketing while AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes has been confirmed as a special guest speaker at the Youth Symposium and forum, Hardy told TTG Asia.
As well, this year’s PTM will also the introduction of a PATA branded app, which will enable users to not only access content of PTM but other PATA events throughout the year. In this way, delegates would not lose any valuable contacts and connections made at an event but continue to building upon them in future, according to Hardy.
However, PTM will retain its cornerstones of keeping the show relatively small as well as roving across different host destinations from year to year.
“It’s not the largest show and we don’t aim to be the largest; we’re small and intimate, which makes it easier for people to network and do business together as opposed to running from one place to another,” Hardy stated.
Unlike other travel tradeshows which are closely associated with marquee cities, Hardy states that the “rotating” nature of PTM, particularly to secondary and tertiary cities, is a USP and adheres to PATA’s principles of advocating sustainable and responsible tourism.
“In the last three years we have been promoting the importance of showcasing the secondary cities; there are far too many tourists in capital cities and we need to push them away to other destinations,” he commented, acknowledging that PTM’s destination choices had come under criticism from the industry.
Yet despite the proliferation of tradeshows in the region, Hardy believes the pie is big enough for everyone as “tour agencies and operators around the world are focusing on different niche markets and attend shows relevant to them”.
He continued: “I think we’re still far away from shows disappearing or seeing a slowdown unless obviously there is a crisis that stops people from travelling. Otherwise, business will continue as it is today and will continue to grow.”
Speakers at the Singapore MICE Forum cautioned that simply adopting digital services is no longer enough to build a successful and standout event.
Instead, planners should work towards blending both physical and digital elements in order to create personalised experiences.
Kai Hattendorf, managing director/CEO of UFI, speaking at the Singapore MICE Forum
“Many events work on a ‘start-stop’ mentality, where engagement starts when the event opens and stops when it ends,” said Errol Lim, COO and co-founder of Jublia, which provides business-matching and online-to-offline technology for conferences and exhibitions.
Instead, what they should do is secure both offline and online engagement that can build a community around their delegates throughout the year, advised Lim.
Mohan Belani, co-founder and CEO of technology media platform e27, added: “Events tend to be too time- and space-driven. Companies should create more opportunities for business matching through online engagement – not just for current attendees but also for future attendees.”
The way to do this, suggested Belani, is by using data analytics on attendees to provide more personalised service in the future.
Experimentation becomes important in this situation, especially as delegates are “evolving”, said Claire Smith, vice president (sales and marketing) of Vancouver Convention Centre.
She observed that successful events challenge delegates to “think differently” and allow them to “create their own experiences (of the event) that are meaningful”.
Smith cited the PCMA 2017 Education Conference as a good example. It used live streaming to emulate talkshow interviews with attendees, thereby increasing reach and delegate-centred content.
In addition, Melissa Ow, deputy chief executive of Singapore Tourism Board, shared that IACC – a global association of meetings professionals – reported more than 80 per cent of planners believe that interactive technology will become integral to business events in the next five years.
“The tradeshow floor and meeting environment will then become an intermesh of physical content as well as elements that are VR- and AR-enhanced,” concluded Ow.
According to UFI, 65 per cent of companies in Asia-Pacific have digitised their existing exhibitions through apps, advertising and signage, with Thailand and China leading at 73 and 67 per cent respectively.
In partnership with key industry partners in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) precinct, the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (the Centre) has established the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre Business Events Alliance (KLCC BEA) to drive business events to the destination.
KLCC BEA comprises the Centre, hotels, professional event planners, shopping, dining, entertainment and transportation partners located in the heart of the city. Partners include Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, Impiana KLCC Hotel, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Kuala Lumpur, the Marini’s Group, MCI Malaysia, Suria KLCC Shopping Mall and Traders Hotel Kuala Lumpur.
(From left) MCI’s Yap Shook Fung; Traders Hotel Kuala Lumpur’s Christian Nannucci; Impiana KLCC Hotel’s Aarron Nelson; Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur’s Robert Dallimore; The Centre’s Alan Pryor; Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur’s Frank Stocek; Marini’s Group Ginny Ng; Suria KLCC’s Francis Tan; and the Centre’s Angeline van den Broecke
These stakeholders will be offering a specific set of benefits to meeting planners and event organisers, as well as develop a benefits programme which will provide value adds from each partner.
The Centre’s general manager, Alan Pryor, shared: “The alliance presents a compelling business events proposition that provides a seamless and single point of first contact for meeting planners and event organisers. A private sector initiative, the KLCC BEA allows us to market the fully-integrated city centre offering and create an all-inclusive proposition for meetings and events from a venue, planner, accommodation and entertainment perspective.”
Hainan is stepping up its game to attract more international business events to the island and participated at its first Singapore MICE Forum (SMF) last week to engage with local and international buyers.
Among its efforts to be more welcoming is the expansion of its visa-on-arrival privileges to 59 countries, up from 26 a month ago. The newly formed Hainan Province MICE Association has also increased its membership from 88 to 120 since its establishment in July, according to deputy secretary, Sunny Guo.
More recently, HPMA, Haikou Convention and Exhibition Bureau (HCEB) and DMC HIMICE Communications Group, timed a small group event for Singapore’s key outbound players on the sidelines of SMF.
Janet Zeng Li, director of Haikou MICE Promotion Consulting Service Center, – a unit within HCEB – said the government is courting events from automotive, finance, chemicals, energy, IT, medical and luxury product sectors.
Supporting this courtship are various convention and exhibition subvention programmes. Zeng said events held in capital city Haikou are entitled to “double” subsidies from the province as well as the city.
“Selected industries such as medical meetings, enjoy up to RMB3 million (US$446,000) if the criteria are met. Also, the minimum size for events in Haikou is only 200 people compared to 300 for Sanya.”
Zeng said the merits of smaller sized events would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Meanwhile, Daniel Chua, head MICE architect, Aonia in Singapore, has confirmed a 150-pax corporate meeting at Shangri-La’s Sanya Resort & Spa Hainan, from August 12-19.
Chua, who is also SACEOS’ vice president, meetings and incentives organisers, said he did not apply for a subsidy as the group had less than 300 people.
However, he commented that “international flights are a challenge” and hopes this will improve.
US-based Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) has acquired Singapore-based Incentive, Conference & Event Society Asia Pacific (ICESAP).
The move supports PCMA’s goal of developing education, certification and accreditation for corporate agencies in Asia-Pacific, said Sherrif Karamat, COO of PCMA.
ICESAP’s Phillip Pang and Nigel Gaunt; PCMA’s Claire Smith, Sherrif Karamat and Michelle Crowley
“We see a great opportunity for events in this region. We believe this is one of the fastest growing regions – if not the fastest – in the world,” Karamat told TTGmice in an interview on the sidelines of the Singapore MICE Forum last Friday.
“The power of this region and its events industry is going to be more important in bringing people together.”
He added: “We will continue to work with other organisations like SACEOS to provide association education, especially in Singapore.”
PCMA will be holding its 2017 PCMA Global Professionals Conference in Bangkok on August 28-30.
Based in Singapore, ICESAP provides education, career development and networking for corporate, agency and supplier professionals in Asia-Pacific’s business events sector, estimated at US$200 billion.
ICESAP will retain its brand and continue to operate in the region with the same staff in its Singapore office headquarters, led by founder and president Nigel Gaunt.
Gaunt told TTGmice: “PCMA and ICESAP see huge potential in the Asia-Pacific marketplace and want to do everything possible to professionalise our sector as well as promote our sector to the wider business community.”
ICESAP will elaborate on its upcoming plans under PCMA at the ICESAP Conference on September 6-8.
Hoping to provide more evening entertainment options in Tokyo for corporate groups and foreign visitors, Japanese drum and dance ensemble Drum Tao, JTB Communication Design, and Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Tokyo, have partnered to produce a new non-verbal performance.
Titled Mangekyo, which translates to kaleidoscope, the show uses a circular stage to represent the eye-piece of a kaleidoscope, as well as unique lighting and passionate drum beats to convey ever-changing visions and emotions.
Mangekyo will debut with two shows at 17.00 and 20.30 from September 16 to October 29 this year. The show will run again from May to June, and September to November next year.
According to Satomi Omachi, representative of JTB Communication Design’s area management division, foreign arrival numbers in Japan have been climbing, but the common complaint among foreign groups and visitors is the limited range of evening activities.
Omachi opined that Mangekyo’s compact two-floor theatre in Shinagawa Prince Hotel makes it suitable for corporate and VIP groups. Planners can choose to book their VIP guests in the box seats on the second floor terrace or buy out the venue.
The venue size also allows the audience to enjoy the performance up close, with those seated in the front rows on the first floor merely a metre from the performers.
The entire theatre seats 400 people, while the terrace takes four guests in each box and 80 in all. Seating on the first floor can be rearranged to suit larger or smaller groups in venue buyouts.
“For an exclusive corporate group, we can even customise the performance by perhaps having the performers shout out the name of the company or address the president of the company,” she said.
“We will seek a permanent venue for Mangekyo at a later stage as it gains popularity,” revealed Omachi.
Mangekyo has several domestic corporate bookings in the bag, but Omachi hopes the show will garner more foreign bookings, be it from corporate groups or FITs.
“We have only more than a month to promote Mangekyo this time, so most of our bookings for the debut season are from the domestic market. With more time to promote our shows in 2018, we can capture the attention of more foreign planners and travel agents, which will bring us a larger foreign audience,” she said.
Information technology (IT) is a powerful and indispensable tool, but it is also a double-edged sword and businesses are paying more attention to the downside as cybercrimes affecting online platforms cost the global economy some US$450 billion in 2016, according to a recent report. The figure is forecast to escalate to US$3 trillion by 2020.
Earlier this year some MNCs like the National Health Service in the UK, Spain’s Telefónica, FedEx and Deutsche Bahn were hit on May 12 by the WannaCry ransomware attack which encrypted data and affected more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries.
Later that month, British Airways suffered a major IT system failure that crippled its operating systems, call centres, websites and mobile apps on May 26, forcing the carrier to cancel all flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
Last year, ICCA members who attended the General Assembly (GA) in Kuching faced technical problems during the online voting exercise and the association had to move to a back-up paper voting system.
ICCA said the situation was caused by factors such as the local WiFi network capacity, the congress app functionality and a hacking from malware that was discovered on a delegate’s smartphone.
ICCA has now chosen to use a secure website and an extended voting window to guarantee all members are able to exercise their right to vote and to reduce future risks to the absolute minimum.
These recent incidents are a wake-up call for the industry as show organisers and suppliers handle gigabytes of sensitive data such as company profiles, delegate names, addresses and credit card, mobile and passport numbers, etc. Adding to the risks are some delegates who do not think twice about logging on to free – and often unsecured – WiFi when available.
An organiser’s responsibility
So, what can meeting planners and the industry do to enhance cybersecurity?
The IT strategist of a leading international event management company opined: “We work with a few parties for any event IT and frankly nobody wants to be responsible. So it falls on us as the organiser and the app developer to do the testing and checking. On my wish list is for the venue to be the third tier.”
He added that most show organisers do not have an in-house IT specialist or app developer who can keep in mind the comprehensive platforms needs, advise on cost, set up special firewalls and decide whether or not to rely on the venue’s WiFi.
The IT strategist further said: “We always advise our clients to buy insurance if they require a high-level of service to ensure voting goes smoothly. Ultimately, the organiser has to block all members from using social media during any 30-minuted AGM poll, otherwise it will slow WiFi speed down.
“The organiser has to look into such details and also set aside (an IT) budget to negotiate with the venue to be sure. Since the WannaCry ransomware attack, clients are more concerned about their app testing properly and are asking for extra checks to be carried out.”
The IT strategist suggested that event organisers create a Standard Operating Procedure and not “base dealings on trust and be honest and upfront with the client about free WiFi and up to what level it will work”.
Jack Chia, executive director of MP International, which organised the biennial INTERPOL World 2017 in Singapore in July, told TTGmice that besides taking a more proactive approach in safeguarding venues, event organisers today must also “have in place a continuity plan in case of an attack, especially for mission critical systems such as delegate registration”.
Venues play a part
Among delegates who attended INTERPOL World shortly after the malware NotPetya attack in late-June, was Michael Hershman, Group CEO, International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS).
On venue safeguards for major sports events, he said ICSS encourages an integrated approach that it is included throughout all operational and planning areas and between public and private stakeholders at an early stage.
“One piece of advice for venues around their cybersecurity planning…collaborate closely and share as much data as possible with local and national government, as well as law enforcement and private security firms to ensure they are aware of the cybersecurity challenges that your venue faces and can put in place the right resources to protect it from a possible hack,” Hershman said.
To secure their IT and WiFi systems, Hershman said venues and events must introduce stronger encryption methods, offer secure applications to access WiFi, and pre-monitor and track potentially harmful websites.
Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, one of the busiest business event venues in Singapore, moved to a Cloud Computing-based system in 2013 when its modernisation programme was completed and the centre works closely with partners when planning various aspects of events.
CEO Arun Madhok said: “We conduct regular reviews of our safety and security protocols. Our team members ran extra checks to ensure all patches and updates were in place across our staff computers following the WannaCry ransomware attack.”
But when asked if any clients had asked for stepped-up measures shortly after the WannaCry episode, Madhok remarked that “TTGmice is the first organisation to request for information on this specific issue”.
HOT TIPS
Stephan Neumeier
Stephan Neumeier, managing director of Kaspersky Lab, a multinational cybersecurity and antivirus provider, shares these simple steps to protect a service provider’s wireless network and router and what event attendees need to be aware of
• Avoid using the default password
It is easy for a hacker to find out the manufacturer’s default password for your wireless router and then use that password to access your wireless network. Change the administrator password for your wireless router. When you are deciding on your new password, pick a complex series of numbers and letters
• Don’t let your wireless device announce its presence
Switch off SSID (Service Set Identifier) broadcasting to prevent your wireless device from announcing its presence to the world
• Change your device’s SSID name
Again, it is easy for a hacker to find out the manufacturer’s default SSID name for your device and then use that to locate your wireless network. Change the default SSID name of your device and try to avoid using a name that can be guessed easily
• Encrypt your data
In your connection settings, make sure you enable encryption. If your device supports WPA (WiFi protected access) encryption, use that. If not, use WEP (wired equivalent privacy) encryption
• Protect against malware and Internet attacks
Make sure you install a rigorous anti-malware product on all of your computers and other devices. In order to keep your anti-malware protection up to date, select the automatic update option within the product
Case: Playing it safe at SingEx
Singapore Expo
SingEx Holdings, which manages the Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre and MAX Atria, takes cybersecurity threats seriously and protecting data integrity for all staff and customers is a top priority.
According to Michael Lim, director, HR & IT, SingEx Holdings, robust sets of perimeter defences for both public and private networks, which are separate and independent from each other, are in place.
Lim explained that private-user groups comprising staff network and regional office systems are secured through a three-pronged defence approach – Cloud Security, Network Defence and End Point User Protection – which protects platforms, systems and devices.
“Cloud Security is established through server protection on workload and vulnerabilities on usual network security, or firewall,” he noted, adding that for Network Defence, SingEx has evolved from the traditional static, signature-based anti-intrusion mechanism into behaviour-based, machine learning-driven technology.
“Processes are monitored for ‘telltale’ signs of malicious behaviour and stops suspicious activities before it becomes critical. In the event that the basic perimeter defence is breached, SingEx uses AI algorithms mimicking the human immune system to defend enterprise attacks.”
Lim further shared that the company’s End Point User Protection is secured through protecting individual users’ information, devices and applications on both physical and virtual platforms.
For public user groups, like public WiFi networks set up for delegates and exhibitors in events organised by SingEx, a different approach is taken. As it is not possible to construct a perimeter defence that is completely foolproof due to inability to control end-point (user) behaviour, SingEx partners top notch service providers ensuring the latest in security applications are in place.
Lim commented: “We can count on our web hosts’ in-built Intrusion Detection Systems, DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) protection, web-application firewalls protection and OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) protection against vulnerabilities, to name a few.
“For clients of Singapore EXPO and MAX Atria, our existing venue setup is also capable of containing the spread of potentially malicious malware through the partitioning of user groups into virtual LANs served by different radius servers.”
You have launched new properties and re-positioned brands throughout your career. What about these projects excites you most?
The process of creating teams of inspiring individuals and then working together to bring a project to life is where I find the excitement lies.
It’s that moment of seeing creative ideas and plans turn into reality that makes me appreciate how privileged I am to be in this role. I get a kick out of seeing a project through from the planning stage of working with architects and interior designers right through to welcoming our first guest!
Mark Winterton
You are also area general manager for IHG Singapore. How do you maintain a work-life balance?
I am fortunate to have a great team that allows me to (have a work-life balance), although in the run up to opening a hotel, (that) balance can change quite dramatically!
Ultimately, it’s important to be able to trust your team and depend on them to lead their own teams. Success is never a one-man show, and when we all pull our own weight it allows time for each individual to maintain a fair work-life balance.
I believe maintaining (that) balance is key to success. I allocate time to do the things I need to in order to sustain the quality of my personal life. But, in the same vein, if I’m away on holiday and have work that needs (attention), I’ll set aside a fixed amount of time to complete what I need to.
How are you psyching up your team for the hotel’s September opening?
The team is starting to see the fruits of their labour as the hotel takes shape and comes alive, so that in itself has got us all really excited.
As a management team we have been engaging with all employees to provide constant updates on the development progress.
We’ve made it our mission to ensure each employee feels involved and shares in the (excitement). We’ve also conducted role play activities and team bonding exercises to familiarise ourselves with each other and make sure we’re fully prepared to work together to create a flawless guest experience come opening day.
Vivian Choa has joined Avani Sepang Goldcoast Resort as director of sales and marketing, based in Kuala Lumpur. Choa has over 18 years of sales and marketing experience.
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.
