Northstar

www.travelweeklyweb.com www.travelweeklyweb.com JULY 2014 | TRAVELWeekly AsiA ■ | 15 MIcE Singapore retains top spot in the Union of International Associations 2013 Global Rankings It was also named Asia's Top Convention City for the 12th consecutive year by the International Congress and Convention Association SINGAPORE – Singapore has retained its position as the leading meeting city and country in the world according to the Union of International Associations (UIA) 2013 Global Rankings. Named Top International Meeting Country for the third year running and Top International Meeting City for the seventh consecutive year, Singapore has once again been recognised as a choice international meeting destination. In 2013, 994 of the meetings hosted in Singapore met UIA's stipulated qualifying criteria1, a 4.4 per cent increase from 952 in 2012. It also formed 9.4 per cent of UIA's database of meetings, which was represented by 174 countries and 1,465 cities. The UIA ranking is the latest in a list of accolades for Singapore as an international MICE destination. This year, Singapore was also named Asia's Top Convention City for the 12th consecutive year, by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA). Singapore's record of 175 ICCA events in 2013 was a 16.7 per cent increase from 150 in 2012, the strongest year-on-year growth since 2005. Said Ms Neeta Lachmandas, Assistant Chief Executive of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said, "We are very happy to be named the top meeting country by UIA once again. Understanding our customers' needs has always been key a focus for us, and we will continue to emphasize our efforts on reliability and efficiency, giving them peace of mind when they attend or hold their events in Singapore." Notable events held in Singapore in 2013 include the IFLA World Library and Information Congress, the 60th Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Annual Conference, the Amway Japan Leadership Achievement Seminar, the World Engineers' Summit as well as the World Retail Congress Asia Pacific. ITE & MICE Hong Kong 2014 ends on a high HONG KONG – ITE & MICE 2014, a co-location of the 28th ITE on leisure travel and the 9th ITE MICE, was held from 12 to 15 June at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre. The Expo highlighted Up Market and Theme Travels, and drew 12,308 visitors, up 3.7%, from the regional travel trade, MICE and Corporate Travel in the two trade days. I T E & M I C E h a d a t o t a l o f 6 5 0 exhibitors with 15% from Hong Kong and international exhibitors from 47 countries and regions, of which 34% were from Asia and 36% from Europe. S e v e r a l r e p e a t i n g p a v i l i o n s m a d e substantial double digit expansions. These included Guam, Switzerland and USA, while Japan and Taiwan had the largest expansions by scale. There was a total of 10 new official stands / pavilions this year, from Berlin City of Germany, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Palau, South Africa, Sweden, Tainan City of Taiwan and Thailand. Overall, the five largest official pavilions were Mainland China, Japan, Taiwan, Macau and South Korea. There were about 100 tourism boards at the exhibition. Among the visitors in trade days this year, by sectors some 9700 came from the travel trade with and nearly half from travel agents, and 2600 from MICE and corporations; and by geography respectively over 9000 from Hong Kong, 2300 from mainland China and 860 from abroad.

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