The island-state of Singapore is constantly breaking tourism records, the national carrier is already flying the new super-jumbo jets to bring even more people here, and MPI recently gave its nod to Singapore as the center-of-meetings-action by opening a Singapore office at the end of October.
"With the continuous development of its meetings and events industry infrastructure, its role as a regional hub for Asia and its appeal as a brand, Singapore is the ideal choice as the place for our fourth office," said Bruce MacMillan, MPI's president and CEO.
What's so special about Singapore? According to Kershing Goh, the Singapore Tourism Board's regional director for the Americas, "Singapore is a really compact destination--we can offer more than what you'd expect in terms of our size. Singapore is not really new to the MICE market. For the past 15 to 20 years, a large part of our visitors have been from the business and MICE markets."
Goh says that as an increasing number of Asian cities modernize and have comparable infrastructure, planners will expect first-class hotels and meeting facilities as a matter of course. What Singapore has over many of its competitors is a cluster of well-developed industries--banking, finance, high tech, communications, and biotech, to name a few.
"Singapore is really more than just a venue--but I can't take the 18 international airlines here that fly to 180 world cities for granted--it's a place that gives your group the ability to network and grow their business,” Goh says. “If you have a pharma group that's looking at an Asian destination, we have some value-adds that will connect them to that industry here."
Roughly 25 percent of visitors to Singapore are business or incentive travelers. Increasingly, Goh says, those two groups are becoming one and the same.
"We hardly find just incentives anymore. We see a trend of promoting corporate meetings by putting an incentive component on the end of the visit or incorporating incentive-like activities into the main meeting," Goh says.
More than 4,200 weekly flights connect Singapore with Asia and the rest of the world. The average flight time between Singapore and ASEAN capital cities is 3.5 hours. More than 7,000 multinational companies have a presence in Singapore, and the island-state hosts upwards of 5,000 business events every year--everything the business traveler could want or need is here.
Recent high-profile meetings include the 117th Session of the International Olympic Committee and the 2006 Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group.
The average room rate--across all types of hotels--is $128. Goh says business-class hotels are in the $150 to $180 range. There are a total of 37,000 hotel rooms in Singapore, ranging from luxury beach resorts to history-laden, one-of-a-kind properties.
Singapore's main large-meeting venues are Suntec Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre, Singapore Expo and Raffles City Convention Centre.
Suntec, next to the central business district, has more than 1 million square feet of floor space on six levels, and has direct access to 5,200 hotel rooms, 1,000 retail shops, 300 restaurants, and the new center for the performing arts, Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay.
Two upcoming developments, Resorts World Sentosa and the Marina Bay Sands--with all the gaming you could want--promise to solidify Singapore's reputation as the place to bring your business in Asia.
With a 24-hour entertainment district, shopping in Singapore's colorful ethnic enclaves (see: http://www.meetingsfocus.com/AsiaPacific/destinations.asp?id=8143), and world-class scuba and water sports, it's easy to see why so many meetings incorporate the pleasures of Singapore into their business.
"You can have a business meeting during the day and then have a beach party on Sentosa [Singapore's island resort] and feel like you're in South Beach, Miami," Goh contends.
It's no wonder that everyone is singing Singapore's praises.
