November 2019

IBTM Asia Pacific, part of IBTM’s global portfolio of meetings and events industry trade shows, will hold its inaugural Asia Pacific event in Singapore, at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre in 2020. As the region’s vibrant hub for the meetings and events market, Singapore was selected as the host city for the very first edition of the show. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) will partner IBTM Asia Pacific to curate thematic tours, local experiences and networking opportunities for hosted buyers. This will take place before and during IBTM Asia Pacific, which will be held from April 6 to 8, 2020.

Together with IBTM Asia Pacific, STB will host interested buyers for a pre-event familiarisation tour, taking place on April 4 and 5, before IBTM Asia Pacific commences. The tour will showcase interesting local experiences and new, unique venue offerings for business events. In addition, STB will offer complimentary tours, on a first-come-first-served basis, on the evenings of the show days from April 6 and 7 for interested buyers to discover a range of experiences in dining, nightlife and entertainment, or to participate in innovation tours in Singapore. Hosted buyers are invited to reach out to IBTM to register their interest.

Nick Pilbeam, divisional director, Reed Travel Exhibitions, commented: “As a group, Reed Exhibitions has a long-standing and much valued working relationship with the Singapore Tourism Board. I’m absolutely delighted that we have cemented that through this partnership for IBTM Asia Pacific. Strategically, the event is a key addition to IBTM’s, and indeed the Group’s portfolio, and is an exciting new addition to the industry calendar for the region’s business events market.”

Singapore Tourism Board’s executive director, Conventions, Meetings & Incentive Travel, Dr Edward Koh said, “We are delighted that IBTM Asia Pacific has chosen Singapore as the destination for its inaugural Asia Pacific edition. As a global hub, Singapore has unrivalled connectivity to the region and also offers strong infrastructure and MICE expertise for meeting planners and exhibitors who are looking to host their event here. We look forward to welcoming the attendees to Singapore in April next year and also invite them to experience our vibrant lifestyle offerings through familiarisation tours and networking events.”

IBTM Asia Pacific will bring together a high calibre group of international, Asia Pacific and local meeting planners and exhibitors for two days of pre-scheduled one-to-one business meetings, education and networking. The event will be under-pinned by IBTM’s sophisticated, industry-leading Hosted Buyer programme which creates personalised appointment diaries for Hosted Buyers and exhibitors to ensure that delegates only meet people with whom there’s a very good chance of doing business.

For more information, or to register interest, visit: ibtmasiapacific.com.

From left to right:  Qiu Guoyue, Xiamen ITG MICE Group; Senthil Gopinath, ICCA; Jeoven Wong, Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Convention & Exhibition Affairs; Noor Hamid, ICCA Asia Pacific; Huang Xiuyun, C&D Global Tourism Group

ICCA was invited to attend Xiamen International MICE Week by three of its members: the Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Convention & Exhibition Affairs, C&D Global Tourism Group and ITG MICE Group. This is the first time ICCA held a Global Executive meeting in a city outside its Head Office in Amsterdam.

Chief executive officer Senthil Gopinath and the Management Team met in Xiamen during the 5th edition of the 2019 International MICE Week to hold ICCA’s Global Executives Round Table Conference.  At the same time, ICCA welcomed new members from Xiamen and signed an MOU to increase further collaboration.

Since 2016 when Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Convention & Exhibition Affairs joined ICCA, the city’s convention bureau has established a close relationship with ICCA. ICCA’s director Asia Pacific Noor Hamid for example, has visited Xiamen for training and knowledge exchange and, in October of this year, the general director of the city’s convention bureau, Jeoven Wong led a delegation from Xiamen to participate in the 58th ICCA Congress in Houston, USA.

China currently is the country with the most ICCA members of 84 organisation strong. The number continues to grow with ICCA welcoming new member Shaanxi Meton Conference and Exhibition Management LTD.

Left: Representatives of Xiamen and ICCA met in Xiamen during the Xiamen International MICE Week

Inspired by the 2020 theme of ‘the power of human connections’, the AIME team has partnered with SolarBuddy an Australian registered charity that provides solar powered lights to children in third world countries.

SolarBuddy was the first charity in the world to supply donated solar lights directly to children, and has educated over 130,000 students in over 500 schools, across 21 countries. Its mission is to help improve the educational opportunities of six million children living in energy poverty throughout South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa by 2030 through providing them SolarBuddy to study with after dusk.

So how does it work at AIME 2020?

Delegates will be tasked with building SolarBuddy from scratch. The lights made during the 2020 event, will give guests the opportunity to create something meaningful, while connecting and building relationships with one another for charity.

Scheduled to be opened in April next year, the museum and park which are set against the natural surroundings of Lake Poroto in Hokkaido, will showcase the custom and tradition of the Ainu tribe that has been officially recognised by the Japanese government as an indigenous people of the country.

Upopoy which is the name given to the museum is an Ainu term that means singing in a large group.  The mission of the museum is to bring people together to understand and learn about Ainu culture and history.

When completed, the museum and park will house a hall with exhibitions on display aided by audio and visual presentation on the Ainu people.  Adjacent is a park on a site of about 10 hectres that includes an open-air museum where you can actually experience the traditional life of the Ainu people through the reproduction of a settlement on the shore of Lake Poroto.

You can easily spend a day at Upopoy viewing the exhibits and enjoying the scenery and outdoor sights.

Eventually the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park in Shiraoi will becomea base for Ainu culture and tradition.  Currently information on the Ainu people can be found in several smaller museums and cultural centres across Hokkaido.

The Ainu people are to be found in Shiraoi, a town that is also a tourist destination with its sea, lakes, rivers, forests and hot springs.  The town is keen on preserving the culture of its inhabitants, the Ainu and the Upopoy National Museum and Park, which is fully funded by the Japanese government, will keep alive the heritage of the Ainu people.

One of Japan’s leading universities, the Hokkaido University is not only an institute of higher learning, but also known for its ginkgo tree lined avenue.  Visitors from all over the world come to walk along the road of rows of these trees to admire the autumn foliage.

The university commonly known as Hokudai is located in the city centre and near to the Sapporo Station.  A vast site, the campus ground includes several school buildings and forests covering about 660 per square kilometres which are used for research.

Part of the university grounds resembles a national park with huge trees, and are open to the public.  In spring there will be colourful cherry blossoms – fresh green plants and blue skies in summer – ginkgo trees with falling leaves in autumn – and in winter, you can enjoy the snow.

Brand USA, the destination marketing organisation for the United States, and United Airlines announced a three-year global sponsorship agreement to promote international travel across the United States.

The agreement makes United Airlines an official Global Airline Sponsor of Brand USA and the exclusive airline sponsor of Brand USA’s next IMAX® film, “Into America’s Wild”, which premieres in February 2020.

While the film takes international audiences on a journey across the United States through its scenic byways, ancient homelands, little known trails, and hidden gems that form the country’s natural tapestry. “Into America’s Wild” features the country’s greatest outdoor experiences from kayaking Oregon’s stunning coast, to traversing majestic canyons in the Southwest, exploring the wilds of Alaska, walking the Appalachian Trail and more.

“Our sponsorship with United Airlines grew out of our mutual passion for sharing America’s treasures with the international travel community. Together, we are determined to find creative solutions that impact global travel to the United States,” said Christopher Thompson, president and chief executive officer of Brand USA. “Travel decisions are increasingly influenced by entertaining content and compelling stories. With no shortage of narratives, Brand USA and United Airlines have the right resources and marketing innovation to elevate the position of the U.S. in the worldwide travel sector.”

Singapore Tourism Board, Tourism New Zealand, Malaysia Convention Bureau, Dubai Corporation for Tourism & Commerce Marketing, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, UNECA and Genting Cruises are among the first major names to be confirmed as exhibitors.

Dream Cruises, a member of Genting Cruise Lines, will host the event’s closing party at the Zouk Beach Club on board the award-winning Genting Dream cruise ship, which homeports year-round in Singapore.

IBTM Asia Pacific has partnered with premium remote interpreting cloud-based platform Interprefy, which as well as exhibiting, will empower the event’s theatre spaces with remote simultaneous interpreting. Interprefy will also provide a silent PA system to help reduce noise pollution, thereby enhancing the delegate experience.

Michael Jones, event manager for IBTM Asia Pacific, commented: “We’re delighted to announce the first exhibitor signings for what we are confident will fast become an unmissable event on the industry calendar. We’re performing ahead of target on sales and not only do we have some incredibly high calibre exhibitors from within the region, but also exhibitors from further afield who are looking to do business with Asia Pacific event planners. We have a very strong sales pipeline and will be announcing more news in the coming weeks.”

IBTM Asia Pacific will bring together a high calibre group of international, APAC regional and local meeting planners and exhibitors for two days of pre-scheduled one-to-one business meetings, education and networking. The event will be underpinned by IBTM’s sophisticated, industry-leading Hosted Buyer programme, which creates personalised appointment diaries for Hosted Buyers and exhibitors to ensure that delegates only meet people with whom there’s a very good chance of doing business.

Michael continues: “The team is working hard behind the scenes on the Hosted Buyer programme, as well as to finalise details of the education and networking programmes. Anticipation is huge ahead of this first edition of IBTM Asia Pacific and we’re excited to share further details in due course.”

The marketing and Hosted Buyer programme, which supports the success of every IBTM event, is well underway and is being managed by the experienced existing team based in Richmond, London, supported by Reed Exhibition’s teams in Singapore, China, Middle East, Japan, Korea and America.

The event will take place from April 6 to 8 April 2020 in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre.

For more information, or to register interest, visit: ibtmasiapacific.com

Aligned with the Meeting Mean Business Canada (MMBC) deliverables for 2019, the coalition has officially launched its “Telling our Story” campaign. The campaign consists of one 4-minute video and 11 vignettes, all of which are focused around the importance of the meetings and events industry to the Canadian economy and the impact that it has on the global economy too.

Speaking about why the coalition created the series of videos, Heidi Welker, Chair Meetings Mean Business Canada commented “One of the 2019 goals was to develop a communications plan around “Telling our Story”. The committee, chaired by Debbie van der Beek, took this task very seriously and created some amazing video content. Phase 1 of the plan focused on Government Influence,” said Welker.

“Our goal with these videos is to communicate the significant economic impact that the meeting and business events sector has on our country as well as on a global stage. It’s time for government officials and fellow Canadians to learn and recognize the importance of this industry on the economy and jobs. The meetings and business events industry will become an industry as recognized as the automotive, manufacturing or agriculture sector. The videos created a focus on sectors where Canada is a leader and the importance that meetings and business events have, in order to advance their sectors. It was truly a labour of love,” said Van der Beek.

All of the videos are available for download from the toolkit page on the MMBC website.