Northstar

www.travelweeklyweb.com www.travelweeklyweb.com JULY 2014 | TRAVELWeekly AsiA ■ | 17 MIcE meeting of just 12 for selected banquet-style events. With 43 breakout rooms on the fourth floor and 70 on the fifth floor, Sheraton Macao Hotel can accommodate events with 5,000 delegates and intimate boardroom meetings for just 12, making it the ideal choice for all occasions, from gala dinners and international conferences to weddings and small meetings Sheraton Macao Hotel is one of the few hotels in Asia with a dedicated team of professionals to target the association meetings segment. Being able to host large-scale meetings with thousands of delegates under one roof is a key advantage of the hotel, which has a dedicated team of professionals led by Director of Sales – Associations & Sales Operations, Ms Corinne Janssen and Director of Sales – MICE, Ms Sally-Ann Klap. 4. Are there many meetings & incentive groups from China? If so, are they usual from the capitals of Shanghai and Beijing or from nearby Shenzhen and Guangzhou? Sherwin Lucas: Both domestic leisure and business-related travel in Greater China continues to rise and today around 70% of guests at the Sheraton Macao Hotel are from the Greater China region including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We continue to intensify our efforts to increase our share of the MICE market and we believe that the growth momentum we had built up since our opening in 2012 will become even more evident, especially with the planned Hong Kong-Zhuhai- Macao Bridge that will link all three cities by 2016. In addition, Macau is a convenient 45-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong International Airport, more international groups can access Macau via this routing. As such, we are confident that Macau's increasing accessibility will continue to boost its growth as a MICE destination. Our next biggest source region is Southeast Asia because of proximity, followed by Korea, India, Australia, Europe, and the US. We will continue to reach out to new developing markets like such as Russia. O t h e r d e v e l o p m e n t s t h a t b o d e w e l l f o r M a c a u ' s M I C E industry include on-going projects near Cotai such as the Hengqin Development Zone in neighbouring Zhuhai where a portion of the island had been signed over to the Macau Government. In addition, the Zhuhai government is also creating a 1.5 km2 financial zone on the island. The companies that will locate within these zones are expected to boost the number of business events and meetings in Macau. All these developments are expected to have a positive impact on Macau's MICE industry in 2014 and beyond. 5. What skills or experiences are required of the Events Concierge? Catering or rooms sales experience? Or hotels operations experience? Sherwin Lucas: I would say that the Events Concierge has to be a jack-of-all-trades. We have to know how every department works and be in touch with what is happening within the departments at any one point. So that when clients make unusual or urgent requests, we know how far we can stretch to fulfil that request. As the Event Concierge is also the main contact point for both the organiser and their guests, we will be at the receiving end of any problems that should arise and we need to attend to these issues quickly and effectively. The good working relationship with the respective departments in the hotel comes in handy here. But I think the two most important skills that we need is firstly the ability to listen, not only with our ears but also with our eyes, and secondly the ability to stay calm and think on our feet. Through listening with our ears and eyes, we are able to understand the client's objectives not only with the spoken word but we can also observe things that needed to be done before the client says anything. This is how we are able to deliver beyond their expectations. Understanding our guests before they even arrive helps us to service them better. It allows us to personalise our service to them and make them feel even more welcomed. We do this by identifying and studying the "Trip Persona" as well as the group dynamics (e.g. country of origin, age, culture and profession) of our guests. When things do not go as planned, we are often called upon to rescue a situation. That is when our ability to think on our feet comes into play. Sometimes, waiting for the right person to solve a problem is not an option. Instead, the Event Concierge becomes the one- stop solution. This is where basic training in the relevant key areas comes in handy. For example, the troubleshooting of Audio and Visual technical glitches, adjusting projector screens and devices connection. This shows our guests that we do not wait for solutions but will be proactive in addressing their concerns plus try to anticipate their needs. I feel that Event Concierges also need to be intuitive people so that as we interact with the client, we are able to instinctively pick up their preferred style of doing things. This goes a long way in pleasing the client. Assigning an appropriate Event Concierge to an event is also important. For example, if an event has guests attending from Greater China, e.g. mainland China and Taiwan, and are Mandarin speaking, it would be more than logical to assign a Mandarin speaking Event Concierge. Moreover, this Event Concierge assigned would most probably be of the same Nationality of the guests. This way, there will be almost no language barrier and little issues with culture differences. At the same time, guests will be more than willing to ask for help should they require any. 6. Any quirky requests from the guests? Sherwin Lucas: The Brief: We had one client who wanted to set up a projector and large screen at Tiki, which is an open-air swimming pool on the eighth floor in the hotel that is meant for private functions. The Challenge: However, it is very windy at Tiki, making it impossible to erect a screen as it is likely to topple over and cause injuries. We were also unable to project images on either one of the Sheraton Macao Hotel's two towers as this would disturb the guests in their rooms. The only other "flat" surface was the pool but we could not project images onto the water. The Solution: We came up with the idea of creating a flat surface by covering the entire surface of the pool with a layer of ping pong balls so that the images can be projected onto the ping pong balls. A total of 10,000 ping pong balls were needed and they arrived in four enormous pallets. It was a logistical challenge for us as there

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