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.

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.

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.