MICE Venues - what about cruise liners?

I read an article in The Sunday Times yesterday showcasing MICE venue options on cruise liners. One cruise giant - Royal Caribbean - has been making strides in promoting its liners as venue options for MICE activities. How interesting! I thought it would be a good exercise to take a peek into what liners have to offer MICE organisers:
- state of the art equipment (audio-visual)
- meeting rooms with a variety of space configurations (depending on the size of the liner, this could go up to seating for 400 attendees): Royal Caribbean liners offer executive boardrooms, multimedia screening rooms, Conference Centres etc.
- dining spaces - from casual dining to fine dining
- accommodation - various levels of luxury
- leisure activities, facilities - making it easy to run team-building exercises
- staff services - porters, guest relations officers etc

I guess the list can go on. One great thing - you don't have to travel far to the next venue. Having said that, the liners these days are massive with each level covering areas equivalent to multiple football fields joined together.....so maybe ther might be quite a lot of walking to do.

The one drawback, though, is that guests have to commit to slightly longer periods for attending the event, unlike a land-based venue where one can leave at any time. But, that is a small price to pay for an experience that would be impactful and very unique.

It would be great to see more and more MICE actvitities being held on cruise liners.....then I would have the opportunity to attend one of such meetings or events!

Haitus....please check back in late October 2009

Am going on a haitus. Need some inspiration to make this blog more useful to readers. For those of you who check out this blog every now and then, I salute you and thank you for the support.

Will be blogging again in late October 2009.

Incentive Travel - still a big business

Incentive travel is a fascinating business, and a major revenue earner within the M.I.C.E. industry. It's the one area where planners can exercise all their creative genius in developing and creating "one-of-a-kind" itineraries. I have always enjoyed the times when I was involved in planning and managing incentive travel programmes - visiting a variety of destinations; staying at the luxury hotels and resorts; enjoying 5-star treatment, dining etc. All paid for by the event owner.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The streets were fairly well maintained and the air clean (i.e. visibility was good). Here are some pictures:



This is one of the common noodle dishes eaten by the general populace (it goes by the name Nom Bonh Chok). You have the choice of 3 different soups - the traditional Cambodian soup (a blend of spices, mainly ginger); Thai hot and sour soup; and a yellow curry. I had the traditional Cambodian soup. The condiments include raw vegetables (basil leaves; tapioca leaves etc) fresh lime; pickled cucumber and raw green chilli padi.


I also had the opportunity to visit the Royal Palace or at least the grounds surrounding the King's residence. The grounds included the Coronation Hall (where the coronation ceremony and other official ceremonies are held); a pagoda (where the King worships); dance halls etc. Very interesting from an Incentive Travel point of view. I kept asking the Cambodian government officers (whom I was with) if there was a possibility of private sector companies using the Palace for a dinner (like treating award winners on an incentive trip to a "royal" banquet within the palace grounds). Sad to say the response was not very encouraging. However, when it comes to incentives, its very much about being creative and finding unique things to do/experience within unique settings and venues.


The incentive travel organisers who have done well are those who have been able to cross creative boundaries in coming up with once-in-a-lifetime experiences for the travel award winners.

The Case for Exhibitions

I have been a bit derelict in my blog duties. The woes on the global M.I.C.E industry continue unabated - the latest stab in the back being the H1N1 influenza virus. But enough of woes. I have been re-visiting the Exhibitions sector feel that this is an appropriate time to make the case for Exhibitions.

Exhibitions (or Tradeshows as is the common term) provide a very important and useful platform for companies to market/sell/promote their products and services. At the same time Exhibitions also provide business executives a platform to engage with the said companies - all in a single location and within a fixed period of time. The costs - neglible to the companies exhibiting and to the visiting business executives.

I recall coming across a survey that was carried out in 2006 in the US. In this survey both tradeshow visitors and exhibitors were polled. Some of the interesting observations were:
- over 90% of the visitors polled stated that tradeshows impact their purchasing decisions as they were able to compare products, pricing, aftersales service packages etc;
- over 80% of the visitors (polled) had some form of purchasing power (on behalf of the companies they represented);
- more than 80% of the decision makers polled noted that tradeshows saved them time as they got to see/meet multiple sellers under one roof;
- the exhibitors who were polled estimated that participating in trade shows costs 30% less than having to go out and make sales calls.

I know that this is only one survey, but the results are very impressive and reflect the effectiveness of exhibitions/tradeshows.

Tradeshows and business exhibitions also bring value to the destinations in which they are held. The local industries benefit from exhibitions. Local business executives get to see first hand the latest technologies that are being developed/used in overseas markets. Industry players get to network with their peers from different geographical regions. Potential buyers get to see, touch, hear, smell and taste products and equipment without having to travel far. Opportunities to generate new business, new investments, new markets.......and the list goes on. Destinations gain from tourism receipts; filips to the local industries; possible inflows of foreign investments; platforms for government officials to share development efforts etc. All this from a single tradeshow/exhibition. Don't think you can beat that!

So, to all the tradeshow organisers out in the world. I salute you and hope that you will continue to do what you do best - create, develop and organise tradeshows!

KPIs for travel to meetings

An article in today's Business Times quotes a recent global study conducted by CFO Research Services and American Expres (Amex), stating, "two thirds of respondents plan to keep in place or even bump up travel spending for existing clients, while 82 per cent of those polled will do the same for meetings with new clients or for business development". This is one of the several positive bits of news that has begun to appear in the media, pointing to a recovery of sorts for the meetings industry. Yahoo!!!

What caught my eye (in the same article) was a comment that some of the companies are now monitoring whether the time, money and effort spent on arranging and travelling to such meetings do result in revenue generation - sort of tracking to see if the event can be linked to new or additional business. Could this signal the emergence of stricter KPIs (key performance indicators) for evaluating meetings? I think this is important. It is heartening (as an industry practitioner) to see companies take meetings seriously. The success of a meeting should be measured in objective terms - this can only lead to a greater conviction in the benefits of holding face-to-face meetings. A lot of time, effort and dollars go into arranging and organising meetings. It is therefore only reasonable to want the meeting objectives to be not only met, but exceeded. Let's continue to cheer for the KPIs!!!

From double whammy to mini second whammy

Phew!!! There must be sighs of relief going round in waves. What was shaping up to be a potentially disastrous pandemic (the H1N1 virus) is now tapering down. I can just imagine meeting organisers around the whole getting ready to pop the champagne. Working hard to revive a somewhat lame meetings industry, the overlooming threat of a flu pandemic only added to the woes. Thankfully, the virus can be combatted by vaccines and most governments have been quick to activate control measures that have prevented the mass spread of the virus.

Meetings organisers will need to work quickly to shore up support from their stakeholders and push ahead with their planned events. They need to and the industry certainly needs to see such events being held. In fact, the various stakeholders in the industry - venue owners, hotels, event management agencies, audio-visual service suppliers, direct marketing agencies, DMCs, the exhibition stand contractors etc - need to band together and provide value-added support to organisers and meeting convenors......nudge them out of their shells and kick start some meetings activities.

Picking the right destination

Over the past couple of days I have been thinking about the impact the destination choice can have on whether one chooses to attend a meeting/conference or not. Using myself as a reference point I realise that the destination does play in role in my selection process when selecting a conference to attend. For example, there is a conference on the subject of gaming which I would like to attend. This conference is run both in Macau and Las Vegas (the Las Vegas version offering an expanded programme). My first choice was automatically Las Vegas - the mecca of gambling.

Funny thing, the programmes would be almost similar and it is of course a lot more convenient to go to Macau. However, as a destination Las Vegas is a whole lot more attractive - particularly from the stand point of view of the conference focus i.e. gaming.

So, what should we take into account when looking at destination options for a meeting or conference we are planning to organise? There are criteria which are practical in nature - geographical location, accessibility of the location; availablity of MICE facilities; safety and security; availability of manpower and support services etc. Then there is the emotional pull of the destination. This is an important criterion - the image and branding of the destination. In my example above, Las Vegas is the mecca of gambling - what more appropriate place is there to hold a conference on gaming than in Las Vegas. Of course the city is a fully functioning convention destination, exceeding all the "practical" criteria. The emotional pull was the tipping point for me.

The emotional pull is an important point. We see it subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, displayed in the destination branding advertisements put out by NTOs, particularly those targeted at the business traveller (business events etc). Next time you happen to watch a destination branding advertisement, do a quick calculation on how much focus is placed on the practical and how much on the emotional. I think you will be surprised by the results.