Monthly Archives

July 2019

SMF 2019 Breaks Through New Perspectives and Forge Partnerships to Transform the Business Events Industry

By | 2019

Design experience, digital transformation, storytelling, community engagement and passionate people are the highlights framed in the key takeaways at the recent Singapore MICE Forum (SMF) held at Resorts World Sentosa Convention Centre on July 25 and 26.

Themed ‘Wired for the Future’, the SMF2019 showcased compelling insights impacting the business events industry. The event brought together next-generation thinkers and disruptors in MICE and industry verticals to uncover deep insights on building value through design and innovation.

Organised by Singapore Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers, SACEOS also forged new ground with strategic partnerships that enable a digitally-ready and future-ready MICE industry.

Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed with fellow regional trade associations and global technology companies to propel digital transformation for the sector and explore cross industry development. Following Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) MoU with Alibaba Group in April to drive visitor arrivals and spending, SACEOS has signed an MoU with Alibaba Cloud (Singapore) Private Limited to explore collaborations on digital innovation for business events in Singapore. As part of the arrangement, SACEOS and Alibaba Cloud will explore joint workshops and seminars where participants can get hands-on exposure to Alibaba Cloud solutions, big data and AI technologies.

As China is a significant visitor-generating market for Singapore, SACEOS will also be working with STB and WeChat, one of the most widely used Chinese social media platform that integrates instant messaging and social payment with over 1 billion monthly active user accounts.

The collaboration aims to increase technology adoption to boost the overall experience for Chinese MICE visitors in Singapore. As part of the efforts to accelerate digital transformation and technology adoption in the MICE sector, SACEOS also signed a MoU with SGTech at SMF2019 to share information, cross-promote, foster collaboration and build a robust business events industry.

Both parties will be working towards helping members improve their adoption of technology and digitally-enabled solutions, as well as facilitating interaction between the members in the two associations.

“We look forward to collaborating with high-impact technology companies to create more business value for both parties, help our relevant businesses in their digital transformation and spearhead greater success for Singapore’s MICE industry. With enterprises existing in various stages of collaboration, competition and transformation, these partnerships will facilitate an effective eco-system for start-ups and SMEs to grow,” said Aloysius Arlando, president of SACEOS.

Beyond digital transformation, SACEOS rallied fellow regional events trade associations to jointly build a stronger business events industry for the region. Together with four other trade associations, SACEOS signed the Asia Community Building Pledge to foster stronger, mutually beneficial cooperation.

The associations include Indonesia Exhibition Companies Association (IECA), Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers (MACEOS), Philippine Association of Convention/Exhibition Organizers and Suppliers Inc. (PACEOS), and Thailand Incentive & Convention Association (TICA)

 

 

Seoul Steps Up Efforts to Train and Support Local MICE Talent

By | 2019

Seoul provided a compelling backdrop on July 5 to help encourage nationwide youths to join the meetings industry at Seoul MICE Future Day 2019, held at Floating Island Convention within the city’s Hangang River. The event is the latest of Seoul’s efforts to upscale its support for home-grown meetings industry providers, in particular small-to-medium business events companies as well as college students and young jobseekers trained in related fields.

Hosted by the Seoul Tourism Organization (STO) and sponsored by the Korea MICE Association, the inaugural MICE Future Day attracted 200 MICE supporters from convention bureaus nationwide. MICE supporters are trained by regional convention bureaus to provide operational assistance at events hosted by their host destination. The Seoul MICE Supporters program in particular assist around 100 business events a year, with an average of 20 supporters assisting at each event – all part of the city’s PLUS Seoul support program.

The Seoul MICE Future Day included a keynote speech on the topic of ‘Trends in the Digital Age and Effective Marketing’ by Kim Taewon, Managing Director of Global IT Group. Also featured was a quiz show, talks by other industry experts and a competition challenging teams of supporters representing each convention bureau to come up with creative ways of promoting inter-regional cooperation.

Describing the motivation behind Seoul MICE Future Day, STO head of MICE marketing Lee Gyeongjae said the event “established a place for talented people who are interested in, and passionate about, the MICE industry,” adding also that it “will expand upon our interactions with academia and related businesses to grow tomorrow’s professional labor force.”

The initiative follows the June 25 opening of the new Seoul MICE Small Business Support Center, designed to provide expert consultation for small-to-medium-sized business events enterprises on a range of matters, including judicial, tax, labor affairs, and key management issues. SMEs account for 85 percent of Seoul’s meetings industry providers, some of which are members of the Seoul MICE Alliance.

“We aim to make the Seoul MICE Small Business Support Center a gateway for SME companies to become empowered contributors to business events in our city” said Ju Yongtae, director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s tourism and sports department. “In so doing, we will actively help MICE companies to create a business-friendly environment for our meetings industry.”

Seoul currently ranks in third place worldwide for the number of meetings hosted the previous year, according to the latest UIA International Meetings Statistics Report – a position it has now held four years’ running. The same report places Korea second worldwide in the country rankings category.

More information about PLUS SEOUL, along with the Seoul MICE Alliance, which includes over 300 city-approved local event venues and service providers, is available at www.miceseoul.com.

 

TCEB-Business’ Effort to Position Thailand as an Exhibition Hub of ASEAN is shaping up with 2019 One of the Best Years

By | 2019

This year sees, Thailand hosting the 86th UFI Global Congress, from November 6 to 9 in Bangkok welcoming more than 400 of the global exhibition industry’s movers and shakers. In total, 22 international exhibitions held in Thailand during 2018-2019 were certified by UFI the global association of the exhibition industry, representing the highest number of UFI-certified exhibitions in ASEAN.

TCEB also supported and won bids for 17 new international exhibitions in 2019 – a record number with more than half being focused on Thailand’s 10 S-Curve industries. They include: four events on smart devices from China, Singapore and Malaysia; one event on digital from Germany; an event on energy from Singapore; two food events from Thailand; and one each on logistics and health from Thailand.

In the pipeline, TCEB-Business is also eyeing an additional 22 possible events, mostly focusing on the 10 S-Curve industries including three digital events, two food events and two events each on energy, smart devices and logistics.

According to Nichapa Yoswee, TCEB’s senior vice president-business, new trends are emerging where international organisers are utilising Thailand as a gateway to the ASEAN region and are, keen to explore the many business opportunities provided by the Thai government’s ‘Thailand 4.0 – EEC’ (Eastern Economic Corridor) initiative; which is considered ASEAN’s largest in terms of investment values and development potential.

These include prestigious events such as CEBIT ASEAN Thailand (Digital) from Germany, Infocomm Southeast Asia (Smart Devices) from Singapore, ANDTEX (non-woven material for the manufacturing industry) from the United States and SILMO (Optical) from France.

New events that are returning for the second consecutive year in 2019 include CEBIT ASEAN Thailand, Bangkok Beauty Show (Health Tourism) and Medical Devices ASEAN (Integrated Medical Service).

She added, this record setting performance is driven partly by TCEB’s ‘360 Degree Exhibition Success’ campaign. The ‘Exhibiz in Market scheme’ has so far supported six national pavilions at various exhibitions in Thailand, including in China at CEBIT ASEAN Thailand, LED Expo and METALEX; South Korea at Propak Asia, SILMO and Medical Devices ASEAN; Singapore at Infocomm Southeast Asia; Malaysia at CEBIT ASEAN Thailand; Taiwan at Propak Asia and Medical Devices ASEAN; and the United Kingdom at Propak Asia.

The ‘ASEAN+6 Privilege’ element assists business missions in bringing trade visitors from ASEAN+6 countries, including China, to Thailand for business meetings during exhibitions held in the Kingdom.  Recently TCEB confirmed 250 trade visitors from Vietnam for business meetings at trade shows on food and agriculture, construction, infrastructure, health, retail, lifestyle and automotive events. Also confirmed are 70 trade visitors from Myanmar for business meetings at trade shows on medical and pharmaceutical, food processing and packaging, retail, logistics, sports and tourism.