International
Marina Bay Sands, Resorts World Sentosa Repainting Singapore's Meetings Portrait
By William Ng
December 12, 2011
In 2010, Singapore attracted 3.1 million business travelers, which accounted for more than one-fourth of total visitors to the destination, a major economic hub located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. That growth is expected to be sustained in 2011, as the latest available statistics for the region show that tourism receipts for the second quarter of this year increased by 18 percent year-over-year. International visitor arrivals in the second quarter stood at 3.2 million, a 14 percent year-on-year growth.
In the last few years, the Southeast Asia destination has dramatically upgraded its infrastructure for meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE), including the Singapore Flyer observation wheel. But the local hospitality picture took a major upward turn with the months-apart openings of two large-scale casino resorts, which Singapore has dubbed integrated resorts, housing world-class entertainment, dining, hotel, and group and meeting space options.
The Vegas-style Marina Bay Sands, operated by Las Vegas Sands Corp., features over 2,500 hotel rooms in three hotel towers, a four-story casino, and a 1.3-million-square-foot convention facility for 45,000 delegates. Resorts World Sentosa, which is still in its first phase, will eventually have 1,800 total room accommodations, but its 35,000-plus square feet of meeting space and Universal Studios Singapore, the only such theme park in the region, have been in full operation.
With both now approaching two years old, we spoke with both Michael B. Lee, vice president of sales for Marina Bay Sands, and Paul Stocker, vice president of MICE sales and event services for Resorts World Sentosa, to get the latest on how the two integrated resorts have impacted the local MICE landscape.
Successful Meetings: How much has MICE contributed to overall business at the property?
Paul Stocker, Resorts World Sentosa: Within 10 months of MICE operations, we hosted more than 1,500 events with over 415,000 guests. In the first half of 2011, we hosted more than 1,200 events. By the end of this year, we are expecting double the total number of events we had last year. Our event spaces have hosted a wide spectrum of events, including conferences—which make up the bulk of our MICE business—as well as corporate meetings, product launches, corporate hospitality events, and intimate meetings.
Michael B. Lee, Marina Bay Sands: Since our opening in April 2010, we have closed 2,500 deals that will bring over 1 million visitors to the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center. The events are a diverse mix of trade shows, conferences, incentives, meetings, and special events held at various venues around the property. The Marina Bay Sands Hotel benefits from several large corporate events and meetings that require accommodations, especially those that attract large numbers of overseas participants and delegates.
SM: What types of groups have used your property?
Stocker: Our clients cut across all sectors, including finance, pharmaceutical, information technology, insurance, research and development, broadcasting, and international associations. Our clients are largely based in Singapore—not surprising considering the concentration of multinational companies here. Other key markets include China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and India.
Lee: We have attracted a diverse portfolio of business from both regional (Asia-Pacific) as well as international companies (U.S. and Europe), across several industries, including medical, information technology, automotive, consumer products, and financial institutions. This year, we had several locally and internationally based trade shows and conferences that attracted huge numbers of international, regional, and local attendees.
SM: How large have your groups been?
Stocker: Our meetings have ranged from 10 attendees in one of our function rooms to an expo with 5,000 guests, which was the case for this year’s Asian Attractions Expo by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions held in June.
Lee: The average size of our meetings is about 155 attendees, with the largest meeting we have had thus far being a 2,000-attendee conference. We will break this record with a conference with up to 3,500 attendees this month. Compared with last year, meeting durations have been longer—mostly about three days long.
SM: How have they used your property?
Stocker: Resorts World Sentosa offers Southeast Asia’s only Universal Studios theme park and a column-free ballroom that seats 6,500 delegates. With our gamut of attractions, accommodations, entertainment, and performances, we are offering a one-stop MICE destination.
Organizers are looking for a one-stop shop that can take care of business in the day and leisure activities in the evenings. Universal Studios Singapore has proven to be a very popular choice for evening events, with turnkey, all-inclusive entertainment, attractions, and food and beverage—fully themed and delivered from start to finish by our MICE team.
Some of our more popular venues include the "New York zone," where companies can book an evening function that uses the streetscapes of nostalgic 1950s and 1960s New York, yet is fully covered and can accommodate up to 1,500 people, as well as the Waterworld Stunt Show Amphitheatre, which seats 3,500 and can be booked as a venue complete with pyrotechnics and stunt performers.
We also recently rolled out our Scavenger Hunt program. It is a teambuilding package suitable for 20 or more attendees. It comes in three levels, and it plays on all things found at Universal Studios Singapore. We received more than 10 bookings in less than a month following its launch.
Also, the wide-ranging dining and entertainment options at the resort are popular, as they offer private networking. These include from celebrity-chef restaurants to authentic hawker fare [inspired by Singapore’s street food markets], as well as the animatronics spectacle Crane Dance.
Event organizers also have taken advantage of our newly opened Maritime Experiential Museum and Aquarium. MEMA offers 10 themed areas and event spaces, including a promenade setting with harbor views that is popular for dinners.
Lee: The inclusion of entertainment as an integral part of MICE activities is a huge advantage for our clients, who continue to look for venues that are engaging in order to attract attendees.
We are able to draw on the many facets of the property to provide delegates with a plethora of activities outside of the event they attend, from visiting the iconic Sands SkyPark, to retail therapy at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, to indulging in gourmet cuisine at a celebrity chef restaurant, to catching a world-famous production in our theaters. Guests can also party the night away at any of our night spots on property.
So the MICE business continues to contribute to the overall foot traffic at The Shoppes and our many restaurants. For instance, from Nov. 13-20, Marina Bay Sands played host to the prestigious 20th World Orchid Conference. This show was visited by 300,000, and many of those visitors took the opportunity of exploring the retail and entertainment options at Marina Bay Sands, including The Shoppes, the many restaurants on property, as well as the blockbuster exhibition at the ArtScience Museum, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition.
The usage of the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center varies with each group, but our property has given meeting planners the ability to make use of various other venues to supplement their events, such as holding a welcome reception in the ArtScience Museum, a cocktail party on the Sands SkyPark, and even a networking event at one of our seven celebrity chef restaurants.
For event organizers, our differentiation could lie in additional value-added services provided during both planning and execution stages. The MICE team is equipped with infrastructure and expertise. A planner is able to use our in-house expertise, for instance, in technical operations, where we provide everything from stage lighting to audio/visual services to electrical to IT needs. We have our own rigging professionals; for trade shows, we are able to build stands and will soon incorporate booth-building to our production abilities. We have a floral service unit as well as a dedicated MICE kitchen.
Each event has an assigned event manager, who is the key contact in pulling all of our in-house experts according to the client’s specific requirements.
SM: How does the upcoming and future years look for both your property and the destination?
Stocker: Singapore has traditionally been strong in its MICE offerings, and with the openings of the two integrated resorts on top of existing facilities, the options and offerings have grown even bigger. I believe strongly that Singapore is very well on track to grow its MICE pie further.
We are still ramping up capacity for our events, as we progressively open Phase 2 of the resort. We will be progressively opening two more luxury hotels; Marine Life Park, which will be an oceanarium with over 150,000 fishes; as well as an ESPA spa complex. These will provide even more event spaces and venues, such as a grotto cave at Marine Life Park. While taking into consideration the global economic volatility, we are cautiously optimistic that we can increase our events by at least 20 percent.
Lee: The outlook for 2012 is still strong for Singapore. There are several factors favoring Singapore: a relatively strong Asia economy, rising tourist arrivals, and solid infrastructure. Singapore has become an outstanding MICE destination that is in the minds of event planners and corporations from around the world.
We may also see increasing instances where MICE planners choose to move their events to Singapore with short lead times. Venues need to be prepared to handle such situations by leveraging resources and services and by being nimble in responding to last-minute client requests.
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