|
I was interested to read a report from the Sydney Convention & Visitors Bureau (SCVB) recently where they were raving about their most recent successes in conference and incentive wins for the harbour city. (see page 20 for details).
Within this press release they also mentioned that incentive groups from Asia were prominent among the bid wins, “continuing a trend from last financial year when Asian business represented more than a third of events secured by the SCVB”. Isn’t that great! More than a third of MICE business for Sydney is coming from Asia.
It’s probably about the same in Melbourne too, and I would suggest much of Queensland. Over one-third of business comes from Asia.
From memory the Sydney bureau in partnership with the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre even has a representation office in Asia now, as does the Melbourne bureau. All great news indeed!
So explain this: why, if more than one-third of business events (conventions and incentives) are coming from Asia, was there not a single convention bureau, convention centre or significant other venue operator or supplier from Australia at Incentive Travel & Conventions Meetings Asia (IT&CMA) held in Bangkok in October this year?
The only representation from Australia was us (mice.net magazine and EventConnect.com) and a handful of other publications. There was one New Zealand exhibitor representative (Vbase), and maybe a dozen hosted buyers from Australia.
In the official IT&CMA press conference I asked the managing director of TTG Asia Media Pte Ltd, Darren Ng, why there were no Australian exhibitors participating. He replied that he was hopeful this would change in future years.
After talking to a number of people I was told that TTG Asia Media Pte Ltd had been told in the past that they could not expect Australian exhibitors unless they strengthened their numbers of hosted association buyers from Asia. Whether that happens remains to be seen.
Tourism Australia runs small workshops in Asia on an annual basis and many Australian-based convention bureaux participate in these, but are they missing out on a major opportunity by not supporting IT&CMA?
Certainly the number of hosted buyers and day visitors are not great at this event but is no representation the answer? When more than one-third of our business is coming from Asia why aren’t we there?
I met a European buyer at this year’s IT&CMA who was telling me about an event he did for a high-end client who had no hesitation in spending more than 50,000 euros for one night-time extravaganza of a four-day program. He said he’d love to bring them to Australia one day except there was nobody at IT&CMA from Australia to tell him more about how he might do that. I said for 50,000 euros I’d thrown them a barbie they’d never forget.
I can only surmise there were a few Asian operators like him who had similar ideas… and probably similar budgets... Perhaps they’ll decide to take their business elsewhere. Perhaps they already did so at IT&CMA in 2007.
Top |