Singapore’s Royal Plaza on Scotts has unveiled a new event space – the Scotts Suite – on its second floor.
The versatile room, which can accommodate up to 80 people, features full-length glass windows that allow in natural light and a gazebo set in a zen-inspired outdoor garden.
Adjacent to the Scotts Suite is the Scotts Lounge, a common area for hearty buffet spreads or mid-afternoon coffee breaks provided by the culinary team behind award-winning buffet restaurant, Carousel.
Two breakout rooms, equipped with large tables and chairs, are conveniently located within the area. More functions rooms are available elsewhere in the hotel. Additionally, an experienced in-house event team is on hand to assist clients throughout the event.
Located in the Orchard shopping area, Royal Plaza on Scotts offers 511 guestrooms and can easily support residential meetings. Other amenities include a gym, a swimming pool and an Internet lounge.
Guests staying at the new Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park in Bangkok will notice a new channel on their in-room TV – a channel that shows only recordings of past TED presentations by forward-thinking, innovative personalities such as MIT Media Lab’s Joi Ito and American author Elizabeth Gilbert.
The TED channel is a result of Marriott International’s ongoing partnership with non-profit organisation TED to deliver curated inspirational content to guests of Marriott Hotels. While the channel is now available across all Marriott hotels and resorts in the US, Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park is the only Asian property to offer it. However, steps are being taken to bring the TED channel to more Marriott hotels and resorts in this region.
The partnership – forged in August 2016 – has also seen four global TED Talks Fellows salons delivered in a selected Marriott hotel in Seattle, London, Dubai and Bangkok, with the fifth and final edition heading to Santiago later this year. These by-invite sessions were open to VIP guests of the hotel and valued business partners of Marriott International.
Fret not if you’ve missed one of these sessions. Marriott International has just extended its partnership with TED into 2018, with even more TED Talks Fellows salons in the pipeline. Although host cities and host properties have yet to be determined, Mike Fulkerson, vice president brands and marketing with Marriott International, has promised to ensure Asia-Pacific destinations and properties will be in the line-up.
There’s even more sweetness coming up – the hotel company is now exploring ways to bring TED content into client meetings held at Marriott branded properties, and options could include pre-recorded TED presentations being shown at the start of meetings to inspire delegates or live presentations by TED Talks Fellows.
The Harris Convention Hall Summarecon Bekasi has recently opened, adding a new events venue to Bekasi in eastern Jakarta.
The new convention hall, which can host up to 1,500 guests in a standing reception, has a ceiling height of eight metres, and is equipped with audiovisual facilities, Wi-Fi and its own kitchen.
Harris Convention Hall Summarecon Bekasi
The convention hall is located in the Summarecon Bekasi mixed-use development, close to the Summarecon Mall and Harris Hotel & Convention Bekasi.
Albert Luhur, executive director of Summarecon Agung, told TTGmice: “Bekasi City needs new facilities (to cater to) the growing population in the area. A multipurpose hall to host various events is one of them.”
Zois Sanidiotis, general manager of Harris Hotel & Convention Bekasi, believes that Harris Convention Hall Summarecon Bekasi’s “new and modern multifunction hall”, convenient location and availability of abundant parking spaces will “herald a new trend, especially in the organisation of events” in the Bekasi area.
Harris Convention Hall Summarecon Bekasi will support the existing Harris Hotel & Convention Bekasi, especially during peak periods when facilities are unable to cope with demand.
SMX Convention Center Davao has seen business events gradually returning since the imposition of martial law throughout Mindanao in May.
According to SMX Davao branch manager Daphne Alojado, the cancellation of events due to martial law was one of her concerns, but most of them had instead chosen to reschedule to later in the year or next.
Daphne Alojado
Interviewed on the sidelines of the Davao Investment Conference 2017, Alojado told TTGmice that she also has been explaining to clients that it’s business as usual, and that the heightened security would help to make people feel more secure.
It also helped that there were many government-hosted and government-sponsored events this year, such as the series of ASEAN meetings held in SMX Davao.
When asked for a view of the future, Alojado expects association meetings to pick up in August, and for 3Q2017 and 4Q2017 to be as busy as previous years. Business next year looks good for conventions as well, as the venue was able to maintain its regular accounts while bagging new ones.
Overall, more business and commercial developments are expected in Davao over the next four to five years, which bodes well for the convention centre.
Changi Airport yesterday unveiled its soon-to-open Terminal 4 (T4) during a special media preview, highlighting how the extensive use of technology and automation will take centre stage at this new facility.
The new two-storey terminal is equipped with the end-to-end Fast and Seamless Travel (FAST) for departing passengers. This includes automated check-in kiosks, baggage drop using facial recognition and Xbox Kinect-powered 3D modelling technology, as well as immigration and boarding gates that share facial and thumbprint biometric data.
Passenger clearing immigration using the AIG
This fully automated process is expected to yield some 20 per cent manpower savings in the long term. The terminal also holds three rows of conventional check-in counters for airlines not yet equipped for automated check-in. It will have centralised areas for departure and arrival immigration as well as pre-board security screening.
Poised to receive 16 million passengers a year, T4 will have a capacity two-thirds that of Terminal 3 and will raise Changi Airport’s total annual capacity to 82 million, said Poh Li San, vice president of T4 programme management office at Changi Airport Group.
Nine airlines are set to operate in T4: four under the AirAsia Group, as well as Cathay Pacific, Cebu Pacific, Korean Air, Spring Airlines and Vietnam Airlines. These serve an estimated eight million passengers in Changi Airport each year.
Of these airlines, LCCs are most ready to adapt fully automated check-in systems, said Ivan Tan, senior vice president of corporate and marketing communications at Changi Airport Group.
Two lounges – Cathay Pacific’s First and Business Class Lounge and Blossom Lounge, a pay-per-use lounge managed by SATS and Plaza Premium, are located at level 2M within the transit area.
With a total floor area of 225,000m2, T4 also boasts more than 2,000m2 of landscaped interiors, immersive LED displays, internationally commissioned installations, 80 retail and F&B outlets, and a Heritage Zone in the transit area with local food offerings.
Located two kilometres from the existing three terminals, T4 will be connected to Terminal 2 by shuttle buses that operate at 10-minutes intervals round the clock.
Currently in the final stage of operational readiness trials, T4 is expected to begin operations later this year. It will be open to public visits from August 7-20, for which all 200,000 tickets have been snapped up.
Gold Coast Business Events has launched a new campaign titled Time to Shine.
The campaign highlights Gold Coast Business Events’ partner venues, which have come together to celebrate the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games with a range of value-added meeting incentives and discounted accommodation offers.
Offers range from free room upgrades and coffee carts, to a complimentary cocktail session and discounted AV packages.
Director of Gold Coast Business Events, Anna Case, said the city is ready to make the year one of the best on record with exclusive meeting offers. She added that the city will come alive with with new infrastructure, upgraded venues and delegate experiences.
Galaxy Macau integrated resort has rolled out a meeting package that offers planners a series of perks that grow with group size.
The UnConventional meeting package starts with two additional offers with a minimum of 30 rooms booked.
JW Marriott Hotel Macau’s Grand Ballroom
The offers include three per cent off the master bill, complimentary welcome drink (max 100 people), complimentary welcome entertainment performance (10 mins), 20 per cent off for audiovisual equipment, complimentary group photo by professional photographer, and many more.
The booking period is until December 31, 2017, for stays until March 31, 2018.
Galaxy Macau resort boasts over 4,000 rooms across six properties: The Ritz-Carlton, Macau; Banyan Tree Macau; JW Marriott Hotel Macau; Hotel Okra Macau; Galaxy Hotel; and Broadway Hotel.
Recreational facilities include 120 pan-Asian and international F&B outlets, spas, a 75,000m2 Grand Resort Deck, cineplex and 200 shops. Meeting facilities within the resort include the 3,000-seat Broadway Theatre, a 1,920m2 Grand Ballroom within the JW Marriott Hotel Macau, and numerous meeting rooms and spaces.
LUX* Bodrum is the latest addition to LUX* Resorts & Hotels’ portfolio and to Turkey’s Aegean Riviera.
The new resort lies on the south-western coastline, on a private peninsula with its own exclusive bay, where the Aegean is at its bluest. It takes in 91 guest rooms, 19 private residences and an exclusive beach house with its own private yacht anchorage.
Facilities include a swimming pool, Beach Rouge beach club for nightly revelries, the LUX* ME Wellness Centre with five treatment rooms, and various F&B outlets.
A curated calendar of expert-led work-shops inspires curious minds throughout the year.
New branding for US’ DuPage CVB
DuPage Convention and Visitors Bureau (DCVB) has undergone its most significant rebrand in 16 years, one that is designed to unify the tourism industry, differentiate DuPage and position the county in Illinois, US as a national player.
The new identity, with its tagline, DuMore in DuPage, showcases the endless possibilities of engaging body, mind and budget in DuPage County. Most notably, the new brand differentiates DuPage from the greater Chicagoland market by no longer emphasising its proximity to the city. It instead focuses on the unique benefits of the DuPage experience by highlighting the stories of its diverse communities and by paying close attention to content, collaboration and community.
In the new way forward, DCVB is prioritising strategic collaboration with DuPage businesses and industry leaders. These collaborations will provide a foundation on which greater needs can be met and symbiotic relationships formed to help planners and visitors alike to understand the wide variety of resources in DuPage County.
The brand’s launch will be supported by a new visitor’s guide and a comprehensive ad campaign that includes digital, transit, and billboard components and more.
The UK’s Dewsall Court opens for early corporate Christmas parties
The sprawling estate of Dewsall Court in the UK’s West Midlands will open its doors to private groups for a week leading up to its annual Furs, Fire and Ice party.
The same theme can be executed for these private bookings, with the programme kicking off with an impressive arrival at the country manor where fire torches light up the pathway to the Wainhouse Barn. Exposed beams, wintery table settings and a crown fire pit set the perfect mood for the festive gathering. Guests are treated to lavish cocktails and a feast of seasonally inspired canapés and three-course meal, followed by dancing through the night.
Corporate groups can also book Dewsall Court as an exclusive celebration house over the Christmas period. There are 10 individually decorated bedrooms complete with designer bathrooms.
Gino Tan, Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s area general manager, Singapore and Pan Pacific Singapore’s general manager, speaks with Karen Yue about his group’s commitment to make food work for all
Gino Tan
Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) has something up its sleeves in support of World Food Day. Can you tell me about it?
World Food Day, which falls on October 16 each year, is a global day of action against hunger. Last year, PPHG initiated a food donation campaign around World Food Day which combines our passion for all things culinary and our desire to give back to the community we operate in. We raised more than S$30,000 (US$22,034) to purchase food items for needy households in Singapore, and the food bundles were so well-received we decided to make this food donation drive the signature event for our CSR efforts.
We are happy to have the support of our like-minded partner, The Food Bank Singapore, again this year. They also introduced us to urban farm Comcrop, which will supply the fresh produce in our food bundles.
For this year’s campaign, the senior chefs from our five Singapore hotels come together to create dishes using local produce to show our support for sustainable eating. A portion of the dinner proceeds during the month-long campaign (July 15 to August 15) will be used to purchase food bundles for the needy.
Why is this initiative available only in PPHG hotels in Singapore? Why does supporting local farmers matter so much to PPHG?
Being a Singapore-based hospitality company we naturally loved the idea of being able to support Singapore farmers too, so it made sense for us to partner Comcrop. In land-scarce Singapore, where only 10 per cent of food is produced locally, we’re doing our part to promote a very important message on sustainability.
We certainly hope this can be an inspiration to other hotels outside of Singapore, even though food sustainability is not new to PPHG. We have close to 40 properties globally which have in place programmes to achieve that goal in their respective markets. For example, Pan Pacific Seattle, which is Green Globe-certified, donates unpresented banquet food to Food Lifeline, a Seattle-based non-profit organisation for hunger relief, and repurposes food waste from restaurants and meetings as fertiliser.
Will this commitment to support local farmers continue even after World Food Day?
We love supporting local farmers and have been doing that for a while. Many items used for dishes on our buffet and catering menus are sourced locally.
(For example), at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore, the barramundi in its signature dish, Penang Assam Laksa with Barramundi Fillet, has always been sourced locally and we will continue to do so.
Working with Comcrop has opened up more avenues for us to work together in new creative ways. Our culinary team from Parkroyal on Pickering is visiting Comcrop’s rooftop farm at SCAPE to learn some of their best practices to enhance the hotel’s own community herb garden. The team is also exploring the use of Comcrop’s produce for buffet dishes offered at Lime all-day dining restaurant, complementing the hotel’s DNA as one of Singapore’s leading green hotels.
Hotels and events are known to generate vast amount of food waste (through food preparation and leftovers). What procedures does PPHG have in place to minimise that and ensure maximum use of food resources?
The “forward-planning” of menus is critical not just to our operations but to minimising waste and reducing our carbon footprint. Parkroyal on Beach Road has a system which monitors reservations and the availability of its F&B outlets in real-time. The culinary team has access to the system and aligns their market list according to demand, which helps us better manage our food inventory.
In a similar fashion, food preparation is closely tailored to the reservation covers received daily at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore, where food for the buffet counters are cooked when requested and replenished according to demand.
Parkroyal on Kitchener Road recycles food in creative ways. For instance, unconsumed bread from the breakfast buffet can used for to make bread butter pudding as a dessert item for dinner. The hotel’s executive chef Low Hoe Kiat had famously created the signature slow-braised pumpkin crab in claypot with pumpkin used as decoration for Halloween! To minimise wastage from food (prepared in advance), the hotel’s dinner buffet allows diners to take their pick from raw ingredients on display for a la minute cooking at live stations.
We ensure we order according to the size of the event as far as possible. At Pan Pacific Singapore, we channel unconsumed pastries from events to the associates’ cafeteria. We are looking to better manage food waste at our hotels in various ways, such as using food waste digester machines to convert solid food waste materials into either liquid nutrient or reusable water. Parkroyal on Beach Road is currently piloting such a machine and we’re looking at how this can work for the rest of our hotels in Singapore, in particular for our largest, the 790-room Pan Pacific Singapore.
Can this initiative bring value to dining events or F&B arrangements during corporate meetings?
There’s more demand for sustainable meeting packages as planners (and delegates) become more socially conscious. The sustainable dishes we launched to support our food donation drive were very well-received because people loved the idea of eating well and doing good at the same time. So I think there’s definitely value in promoting sustainability for our corporate meeting packages… because of its strong element of giving back to the local community.
What other social projects does PPHG have in Singapore or other destinations where it has hotels?
PPHG has made our passion for all things culinary the heart of our CSR efforts by leveraging the culinary skills of our hotel chefs. Since the launch of our Eat Well With Us culinary initiative in 2015, our chefs have been making regular visits to a number of adopted charities – which have grown from four to 10 homes for the elderly, children, and those with mental disabilities – to impart healthy and tasty recipes to their resident cooks.
As a natural extension of these culinary visits, award-winning executive chef Andy Oh from Parkroyal on Beach Road is also consulting for Bakery Hearts, a social enterprise which provides employment opportunities for less privileged women, to help equip them with the necessary skills as they enhance their business model and expand their operational capabilities.
The number of declared corporate incentive arrivals from Malaysia to Japan had grown by 50 per cent last year over 2015 to 12,615 visitors, according to data collected by Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) from Malaysian outbound travel agents, but industry players have observed simpler programmes being purchased by clients disabled by the weak ringgit.
Speaking to TTGmice during a JNTO travel incentive seminar in Kuala Lumpur last week, Jennifer Tan, director of AISC, said: “There is an increasing demand for three-star properties especially from small- and medium-sized enterprises. Another way organisers are (dealing with a smaller budget) is to offer a free day to delegates but giving them a food allowance for the day.”
Queenney Lew
Tan is based in Kuala Lumpur, but does sales and marketing for a Tokyo-headquartered DMC.
Queenney Lew, head of department, MICE, Apple Vacations & Conventions, agreed that aside from the downgrading of hotels, Malaysian organisers are reducing the number of nights. Previously, five-night trips used to be popular, and combined regions such as Honshu with Hokkaido.
Lew said: “But now we are getting requests for two or three nights, and to mono destinations such as Osaka or Tokyo only.”
To maximise client budgets, Lew watches out for “good offers from airlines” while taking groups out of the pricier main cities to interesting towns on the outskirts such as Hakone outside of Tokyo and Ineno Funaya outside of Honshu.
When asked about this, Japanese convention bureaux representatives at the seminar told TTGmice that special support programmes – such as hosting site inspections, meet and greet services at the airport, and complimentary entertainment during gala dinners – are available for budget-conscious companies hoping to take an event to Japan.
Susan Maria Ong, MICE director, Asia Pacific with JNTO, shared: “JNTO has recently compiled a subsidies support list, and it is on the japanmeetings.org website. Such support will defray the costs for organisers who are looking to hold an event in Japan.”
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
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A polished urban retreat designed for business travellers, Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown combines thoughtful design, seamless service, and exceptional facilities.
Passenger clearing immigration using the AIG
