Bat Travel - Mice Specialists
Bat Travel - Focus on MICE Travel
Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE), comprise a multi-billion-dollar industry encompassing major conventions bureaux, hotels, caterers, exhibition, conference, and convention initiators, and organizers.
It is a growing industry as corporations, industries, government and non-profit organizations engage more in various events. That said, the current global financial crisis has slowed the demand and growth, although pre-planned meetings, conventions, and exhibitions are still sutaining the industry and the support sectors. Attendances however are falling short of expectations.
Convention Centers in Europe
Europe has estanlished itself as a central player in international trade, research and development, entertainment, business and a number of other areas. It is no wonder than that the continent is home to some of the best convention venues in the world. Below is a list of some of the best in Europe:
The Estrel Berlin - the best and biggest hotel, entertainment and convention facility of its kind in Europe, the Estrel is a perfect choice for large delegations with a central conference hall that can accomodate up to 6000 people, thats around the same size as the UN Assembly chamber. The hotel offers over 1000 rooms, and over 10,000 square feet of facility space for a number of purposes.
The Seville - the Seville conference facility in Spain is great for companies that are considering streamlining their budgets during these tight times. It has a central conference block and three further event pavillions. Clients for this year include L'Oreal, Nissan and IBM.
Convention Centers in the United States
| Alabama
Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center 2100 Richard Arrington Jr. Boulevard North Birmingham, AL 35203 Phone 1 205-458-8400 Alaska William E. Egan Convention Center Anchorage AK555 West Fifth Avenue Anchorage, AK 99501 1 907-263-2800 Juneau Centennial Hall Convention Center 101 Egan Drive
Arizona
Arkansas Statehouse Convention Center
California
Los Angeles Convention Center
Connecticut
Washington Convention Center
Tampa Convention Center
Hawaii
Idaho
|
|
Illinois
Iowa Events Center
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Mississippi
Missouri
|
|
Nebraska
Qwest Convention Center 455 N. 10th Street Omaha, NE 68102 1 402-341-1500 Nevada Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority 3150 Paradise Rd Las Vegas, NV 89109 1 702- 386-7100 New Hampshire
Wildwoods Convention Center
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
|
 |
Rhode Island
Rhode Island Convention Center One Sabin Street Providence, RI 02903-1814 401-458-6000 South Carolina
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont Virginia
Wisconsin
|
mice.net magazine Publisher Expands into Asia
22 Feb 2010
BT Publishing Pty Ltd, publishers of the mice.net magazine in Australia, has expanded operations into Asia and has recently opened an office in Singapore.
The new company, Business & Tourism Publishing Asia Pte Ltd (BTPA), is being headed up by Irene Chua, who assumes the role of Director/Publisher.
Ms Chua, who has over 15 years experience in regional publishing and media with Reed Elsevier, CNBC, TTG and Reader’s Digest group, has welcomed the challenge of taking BT Publishing’s miceASIA.net magazine to the next level through the establishment of the Singapore hub. Future plans include establishing several representative offices in South East Asia.
The new miceASIA.net magazine will be produced 6 times a year and will be relaunched in July 2010 together with electronic mediums. Its strong editorial focus will service the meetings, incentive travel, convention and special events segment with strong distribution throughout the Asia Pacific region.
Its design and content will have similarities to that of the mice.net magazine in Australia and key elements will be added following market research and consultation with a number of industry heavyweights based in Asia.
Ms Chua said she was extremely excited to be a part of a new publishing venture, and expected miceASIA.net to quickly become the market leader in the MICE sector.
“There are very exciting times for the mice industry in Asia with new resorts and venues redefining the MICE products available. Corporate end users are more discerning and demanding and the timing is right to relaunch our MICE magazine in Asia.
BT Publishing Pty Ltd managing director and group publisher Helen Batt-Rawden, was full of praise for Ms Chua and her enthusiasm in miceASIA.net magazine and mice.net. ‘Irene has had many years experience in the MICE industry in Asia and her determination and leadership will take miceASIA.net magazine and its electronic mediums to a whole new level. ‘
The sales team has already been appointed and will hit the ground running, with editorial and admin staff to be finalised shortly. All have been directed to produce the leading business event/MICE magazine servicing the Asia region.
Ms Chua and her team will also represent mice.net magazine in Asia.
Eight Asian countries form regional events industry trade group
China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Macau have joined forces to create a giant body to promote the Southeast Asian events industry. A regional convention and visitors burear is the result, named the Asian Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus or AACVB. The body comprises the individual bueaus from each country.
Formed last year the body was out in force to energise the sector which had fallen victim to the global financial crisis, with many companies curtailing or cancelling events, exhibitions, conferences and conventions.
AACVB Chairperson, Ms Suprabha Moleeratanond of the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, said, "At least eight convention and visitor bureaus will put cooperation ahead of competition and raise the level of sophistication of the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibition sectors in Asia. Our aim is to increase competitiveness and drive new MICE business to our region."
Ms Suprabha told a press gathering at IMEX in Frankfurt at the 2009 launch that the AACVB's eight voting members had signed up for an aggressive new agenda that will attract intra-regional conventions, especially those that can be rotated among AACVB members.
"We aim to enhance standards in the convention industry by developing and promoting sound professional practices. We want client organizations holding events in Asia to be highly impressed by their convention experience in Asia. To achieve this, AACVB will initiate training programmes. We aim to position Asia as the world's ideal convention destination, and increase Asia's market share of the global convention market," said Ms Suprabha.
The AACVB was established in 1983. The Association is now being relaunched with a new agenda which will help drive more MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) traffic to the Asian region through the establishment of a shared data bank among member CVBs. The new strategic direction also calls for the sharing of best practices and the creation of joint branding, advertising and marketing. AACVB will also look into areas such as training programmes and accreditation to raise the region's industry standards and professionalism.
"A successful MICE sector doesn't just happen," said Ms Suprabha. "Sought-after MICE destinations work hard to offer value, service, accessibility, cultural variety, safety and a highly rewarding experience for all participants. The relaunched AACVB is committed to cooperate and provide the platform that will make success a reality for the Asian MICE sector."
Contact information
AACVB Secretariat
c/o Macau Government Tourist Office
Macau Business Tourism Centre
Largo do Senado, No 9, Edf. Ritz., Macau
Tel: (+853) 8396 3098
(+853) 8396 3015
Fax: (+853) 2870 3213
Email: aacvb@macau.ctm.net
Media queries
Sumet Kanchanapan / Parichat Svetasreni
Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau
Tel: (+66) 2694 6096 and (+66) 2694 6092
Email: sumet_k@tceb.or.th, parichat_s@tceb.or.th
Middle East - a Mecca for MICE
Dubai, true to form, has evolved one of the largest with Exhibition City at the World Central Jebel Ali project, a 120,000m² centre comprising hotels, apartments, storage, offices, airport and rail links and a massive exhibition venue, due for completion in 2009.
Purpose-built to cater to large-scale exhibitions and trade shows, both consumer and trade, developer, the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is confident it will become an unrivalled hub and one of a kind in the MICE world.
According to director general, Helal Saeed Al Marri, there will be no other venue like it in the world: “While we have taken components from a variety of locations, on a macro level there is no comparison, and we have built in flexibility to ensure we are not limited in any way for future growth,” he says.
Al Marri says that while the current DWTC complex and Airport Expo will continue to host shows, there will be clearer segmentation, with consumer events that expect greater traffic taking place at the Dubai Exhibition City (DEC) complex.
“In future, the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre might be the more prestigious venue for specialised shows, while generic exhibitions can grow at the DEC, where the transport links will make it easier for consumers to visit.”
In addition, the area around DWTC will be developed, retaining the existing conference centre and some of the halls but adding in more flexible space specifically designed with facilities geared towards corporate training, regional conferences and other specialised niches.
Current capacity at DWTC is approximately 6000 in each hall, but Al Marri says the new complex could cater to meetings of 15,000 with the addition of extra rooms that could host between 500 and 1000 visitors.
“No expense will be spared to ensure this is the most functional such complex globally,” he says. “Big conventions are a small part of the conference agenda and break-out rooms for between 100 and 2500 are more in demand than the larger spaces that we already have.”
In another move that will boost the exhibition and conference sector, Al Marri says DWTC will operate an open door policy for organisers, doing away with the sector protection policies of the past and encouraging more international involvement.
This proactive stance is echoed in Abu Dhabi, where authorities have joined forces with several major show organisers in a bid to fill the new halls currently under construction at conferencing venues around the emirate.
Concurrent building works encompass a 57,000 m² exhibition showcase at the heart of Abu Dhabi’s Capital Centre, another multi-use arena with hotels, offices, retail and entertainment outlets and waterfront.
And it is the same story around the Gulf: Ras Al Khaimah’s development plans include a MICE-oriented hotel, the Al Hamra Palace, as well as a conference centre in its Gateway project, while Oman tourism authorities have promised a dedicated conference and hotel project will be built in Muscat.
Bahrain, perceiving potential to develop business as the gateway to the northern Gulf, has a new conference and exhibition centre, which is currently in the planning stages, with 60,000m² of space to cater to larger events.
“We are seeing an overspill from Dubai and need more conference facilities in order to can bid for bigger events,” says Debbie Stanford, marketing head of the Bahrain Exhibition and Conference Bureau.
Likewise, Qatar has its eye on MICE business and as part of its overall infrastructure development has a new conference auditorium set to open next year in the Qatar Foundation complex. This will be followed by the redevelopment of the existing Qatar National Exhibition Centre within the next 12 to 24 months.
In Egypt, developments are also underway. Cairo’s exhibition and convention centre is being turned over to an international management companynext year, at which point a commercially-tuned convention bureau is expected to come in to the picture.
Meanwhile, Port Ghalib’s dedicated conference centre and resort, operated by Sun International, will add a further dimension to Egypt’s overall MICE product.
As well as all these meeting rooms, there are dozens of hotels also on the drawing board throughout the GCC, all of which will include ballrooms and boardrooms, adding to the huge rise in capacity that will occur on a regional level over the next three years.
Filling all this space with MICE visitors will be a joint venture between the individual hotels and their respective tourist boards and convention bureau and, in several of the region’s smaller MICE destinations, hoteliers are taking a proactive route to establish their own niche in global markets.
At the Dead Sea in Jordan, for instance, with just three big-brand players — Movenpick, Marriott and Kempinski — the hotels’ management have teamed up, coming together with the shared goal of positioning their properties, and the adjacent convention centre, as a MICE hub.
According to general manager for the Jordan Valley Movenpick, Bruno Huber, to grow the destination as a venue for conventions, the three companies are working together to produce a ‘bid book’, focusing on technical information for conference organisers, with just 10% of its column inches devoted to the promotion of the individual hotels.
“We need to start with a branding exercise and complement this with a ‘ready to buy’ product, backed up by a destination team,” he says.
“Clients are not yet looking favourably on Jordan as a convention centre, but organisers need to put more than one destination to a client and what we are asking is that they put us in as one option to get it in the frame,” adds Marriott’s regional sales and marketing director, Jan Heesbeen.
In a similar vein, Fujairah’s new hotels are already talking group sales in a bid to boost the destination as a venue for smaller meetings, alongside its established leisure role.
Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort in Fujairah has ploughed a lonely furrow for nearly four years now, and has succeeded in attracting both regional and international groups, but with new neighbours the Rotana, Iberotel and JAL opening in 2007, co-operation has been established early to pitch for more corporate business.
“We have one of the largest ballrooms in the region and can take conferences and corporate meetings, but we don’t have the rooms to match,” says Le Meridien Al Aqah’s general manager, Patrick Antaki. “Working together will benefit us all.”
According to Daniel Hajjar, vice president of sales and marketing for Rotana, the new hotel influx gives the emirate mass credibility.
“We are promoting MICE, but the challenge is the destination image, since destination marketing plays a key role and hotels are having to take up this role too.”
The possibility of a joint ‘bid book’ for Fujairah has been discussed too, and here Hajjar says that the first hotels could set the standard, obliging newcomers in the future to join in the process.
If start-up destinations are propelled in to self-help promotion and co-operation in order to trap their MICE business, however, hotels in the honeypot venues such as Dubai can also pick up a few tips to help sustain the good times.
Event specialist MVM established an office in Dubai a year ago in order to capitalise on the emirate’s central location between Europe and Asia, but director Kate Bowery has noted distinct operational difficulties due in most part to the city’s success.
“Operators here are no longer hungry for business and the shortage of hotel rooms and high rates are another challenge,” she says, contrasting this with the situation in Oman where, she says, local destination management companies (DMCs) are “willing to go the extra mile”.
Thinking outside the box about ways in which to differentiate the Dubai product is one way Bowery sees of bringing back incentive and conference business in particular.
“Adding in a team-building element can add a differential for those who have been here before and done the dune dinner and dhow options,” she suggests. “Dubai has almost costed itself out of the equation with rates that are equivalent to Paris, for instance, and it has become very hard to entice groups to come here, particularly from the region.”
Hotels have been able to justify these rocketing rates due to the staggering levels of demand that has been seen from all industry sectors thus far. For MICE organisers it has made the bid process all the more difficult, however, with most of the budget now going to cover accommodation and leaving little over for the frills that distinguish an individual event.
“For an incentive to be different, you have to throw money at it and now hotels take up the budget,” says business development manager for Gulf Ventures, Richard Hawkins. “If a client wants beach, executive club rooms or whatever, then they have to cut back somewhere else.”
For big businesses, organising conventions with delegate numbers in the thousands that are booked out several years in advance, the excessive and ever-rising room rates makes forward planning especially difficult.
Pitching a bid for those association entails offering a range of accommodation and projected prices, a process that cannot simply be satisfied by taking estimated projections that take the current rate and add 15% a year for every year until the event takes place, a scenario initially faced by the Dubai Convention Bureau (DCB).
Flexibility with rates and co-operative working practices will all help when the going gets tougher — DWTC’s congress management division, for instance, has recently set up a hotel booking service to secure accommodation for visitors during the emirate’s busiest periods, a move that was not easily accomplished, according to the organisation’s general manager-commercial, Christina Anthony.
“We have had to work hard to establish relationships with hotels in order to achieve firm allocations, and this has been a difficult process given that occupancies can run at more than 90% for many months of the year.”
However, when doors open to the massive influx of rooms currently under construction in Dubai, and elsewhere in the region, those with such agreements in place may pat themselves on the back for their long-sighted management strategies.
Media & Telecom draws advisers to Amman
The sixth Arab Advisors Conference on "Media & Telecom Convergence" kicked-off in Amman, with top notch speakers and over 500 attendees, running for two days (1st & 2nd June, 2009). HRH Princess Sumaya Bint Al Hassan inaugurated the event calling for "developing a trans-border framework which aims at moving from consumerism to productivity, and building trust and cooperation through the region."
The official opening ceremony was also addressed by HE Eng. Bassem Rousan (Jordan’s Minister of ICT), and on this occasion the minister said “Convergence presents us with a great opportunity that the Media and Telecom business can greatly benefit from, as new sources of revenue are emerging.”
"The annual media and telecoms convergence conference has become the premiere regional event for the media and telecoms industries evidenced by the strong support from the sponsors and the level and numbers of speakers and delegates," said Mr. Jawad Abbassi, General Manager of Arab Advisors Group.
Jawwal is the Main Sponsor of the Arab Advisors' sixth Annual Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference 2009. The annual conference also received the support and sponsorships from Asiacell ESKADENIA Software, QUALCOMM, Ericsson, Optimiza, Orange, Nokia Siemens Networks, Orga Systems and Umniah (Batelco Group).
Conference exhibitors and partners include Globitel, TE Data, DVV Media, Game Power7, UrFilez, ITP CommsMEA, Zawya, Trade Arabia, Madison PR, mediaME, Media Watch, Telenity and STS
