As a destination for MICE business in Asia, China has been at the forefront of corporate end-user and event planner rosters as the country opens up, develops and accessibility becomes easier. Its two main cities – capital Beijing and business capital Shanghai - have become highly sought after business event destinations, while international travel industry corporations such as airlines and hotels make arriving and staying in China generally easier. These two cities – and China in general – have also benefited from massive investments in infrastructure. This investment was also crucial in Beijing winning the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai being granted the 2010 World Expo. All of this creates what should be a MICE industry thriving on the international exposure and demand from major multi-national companies searching for new destinations in Asia.
It is true demand is there as a highly desirable country, but in truth China does seem to be struggling with managing the “finer points” of an industry that demands and pays for excellence and extraordinary events. Clemson Lo, managing director of Hong Kong based MV Destination Management has been managing international MICE events in China for more than 10 years. He says while the hardware and facilities are now comparable with most destinations in Asia, the areas that require fine detail are still struggling to be met adequately.
“The standard of service is a huge challenge still not being met,” he says.
“People are willing and trying to do a good job but most of the time they do not meet the expectations of a high-end MICE group.
“[This is] partly because of the cultural differences and largely because of staff training in this sector. And it is a sector where the turnover rate is high.
“For repeat projects it is difficult to find the same venue or contracting staff who had been working on my past projects. I have already spent many hours telling them of my expectations in previous visits and two months later they can be gone.”
Frankie Gao, executive director of Shanghai-based Transworld Tourism Resources has many years’ experience in the MICE industry in China, dealing with both in and outbound traffic.
He agrees having instructions followed can be a challenge and questions why international companies want to run incentive programmes in a country with these challenges to face, although he believes conferences and conventions are now being managed well.
“There are still too many challenges, the biggest challenge is communication with the venue owner and managers, but it is getting better,” he says.
“I don’t think China is so popular for international companies bringing incentive groups here.
“In the last couple of years China has built a good reputation for conferences, conventions and events, but as a motivational destination I have not seen China build a strong image for incentive programme participants to chase as a reward.”
Gao adds this is changing and he hopes to see China become a destination to aspire to in the near future. Richard Willis, Guangdong-based chairman of SKY Travel is another who agrees. Willis has been running high-end MICE events in China for “more years than I care to remember” but adds while the country seems “reasonably” well geared to cater to English-speaking clients, many European markets want to take business events to China as well.
“Don’t get me wrong, China has improved immensely and will continue to do so but there are still a few challenges for event planners and organisers to meet,” he says.
”There is the obvious lack of experienced and well-trained staff to operate and manage events, [and] a lack of language skills for certain languages such as Spanish and Portuguese.”
Brian Deeson, the Shanghai-based chief executive officer, Greater China for Accor Hotels and Resorts (and PATA chairman elect for 2007) is responsible for overseeing the group’s massive expansion into China. It seems that every other week Accor is opening a hotel in China with extensive MICE facilities. He understandably believes venues should be given a little credit given the rapid expansion in the sector.
“I suppose that the events segment is relatively new here but I have to say that things generally go smoothly as the employees here enjoy working on them,” he says.
“Everything is available here as well and we have the ability to create special themed functions quite easily.”
Other international event planners have also seen the need to try and forge partnerships with experienced people on the ground to meet the challenges and expectations placed on high quality events.
Nigel Gaunt, Australian-based managing director of The Mint Organization says he has been able to carry out some magnificent events in China through training and by seconding staff from his Australian or Singapore offices.
The MINT Organisation also took this a step further and has opened an office in Shanghai.
“We have done a lot of event work with both General Motors and BMW in China as well as with HSBC,” he says.
“We have enjoyed some great successes but not without enormous challenges given the need for an event management company to bridge the gap between customer expectations and the on-ground delivery challenges.
“We always use our China-based expatriate staff to lead events and supplement them with staff from Singapore or Australian offices if the scale requires it.
“We are fortunate to have retained some great local staff in our Shanghai office and with their operational experience we are achieving great results without the same stress levels or expatriate involvement by comparison to two or three years ago.”
The industry knows its short-comings and is working just as rapidly as the country is expanding to meet these challenges. When it does – and it will – China will meet the expectations of those who aspire to visit the middle kingdom.
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