The so-called Team Australia Business Events Educational, or TABEE, celebrated its 10th year in Macau in early March 2008, with organiser Tourism Australia flying in buyers from throughout Asia for the tabletop sales sessions, gala dinner, lunches and networking opportunities.
TABEE has been a bit of a mystery with those who have never participated in the event before until this year when Tourism Australia invited along a couple of Australian-based trade journalists to view it first-hand, mice.net included. What this journalist discovered was a slickly-run, intimate opportunity for some of the leading Australian business tourism operators, convention bureaux, and hoteliers to get their names and faces in front of well-qualified buyers from throughout Asia.
According to Tourism Australia’s Richard Beere, holding it in a different Asian destination each year is for two clear-cut reasons. The first is to allow the very busy buyers the opportunity to participate in TABEE and then engage in some of their own business in the destination where TABEE is being held. The second is to show Australian participants what the host destination is all about – IE – what they may be competing with when it comes to winning business. (See story on page 8).
TABEE 2008 was also the first one for Tourism Australia’s head of Business Events Australia, Joyce DiMascio, with Ms DiMascio rating the 10th anniversary event a success in every respect.
“There is no doubt that TABEE continues to be a valuable business development forum,” she said.
Sunshine Coast Convention Bureau business events manager, Anne-Marie Coulton, has been a strong supporter of TABEE, and said the 2008 event provided “another great opportunity for us to showcase the Sunshine Coast to new and emerging markets. The value of attending TABEE to educate buyers about the destination and provide them with new and interesting incentive options cannot be underestimated,” Ms Coulton said.
Karen Bolinger, now with Staging Connections, has also been a long-time supporter of TABEE.
“Staging Connections has exhibited at TABEE a number of times and this year was one of the best with many opportunities around the country already coming in for us,” she said.
Part of the 2008 program included a business forum for participants on the challenges and opportunities for Asian business events in the future (details of which, including trends and findings, will be outlined in the June 2008 edition of mice.net magazine).
In a new session two of Australia’s industry leaders – managing director of TTF Australia, Chris Brown, and managing director of ATEC, Matt Hingerty - gave presentations about the need to keep Australia on the front-foot through imaginative, creative product development and effective advocacy.
Special mention was made at the TABEE gala dinner to a number of individuals and companies who had made a significant contribution to the success and longevity of TABEE.
These included: Martin Winter, Adelaide Convention Tourism Authority; Peter Kinnane, Off-Site Connections Event Management; Sandra Passaro, Sandra Passaro Consulting; Karen Bolinger, Staging Connections; Jon Hutchison, Sydney Convention & Visitors Bureau; Qantas Airways Limited; and Johnny Nee, Tourism Australia.
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