Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) staged an experience of sights, sounds and tastes in October with their Macau Unmasked roadshow in Australia. With evening events held in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, MGTO aimed to highlight what Macau has to offer the MICE industry. On arrival guests were given a colourful mask and then treated to drinks and Macanese food and entertained by an MC who took on several personas, and even staged an auction where guests could bid for Macanese items using chocolate money. The evening was festive, informative and fun, and guests walked away knowing a lot more about what Macau is all about, thanks to a short but sweet presentation from Cecília Tse, head of MGTO promotion and marketing department.
ABOVE: Macau put on a show filled with feathers, flavours and fun for guests in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
With the doors opening for business in February at Rotorua’s new Energy Events Centre, the final form of the complex is taking shape. The front façade is being installed with large curved frames in place ready for fitting linear glass louvres to achieve the sweeping horizontally-lined frontal view envisaged by the architects. The louvres will feature neon lighting treatments accenting the building’s football-field-length glass frontage and providing a contemporary illuminated effect at night. Meanwhile the Rotorua District Council is taking advantage of the high level of large-scale conference bookings already secured for the first year of operation to accelerate the timing of some “stage two” plans, including a second car park area, as well as providing additional storage space, increased furniture stock, security cameras, electricity reduction equipment and extra food preparation utilities.
One of Melbourne Convention & Visitors Bureau’s (MCVB) staff members was selected to participate in the ICCA Forum for Young Professionals at EIBTM in Barcelona in November. Olivia Ta, the MCVB’s business development and database co-ordinator, was the only Australian selected and was one of only 22 participants worldwide. Ms Ta was the first Australian to participate in the forum since 2001. More than 60 industry professionals from around the world applied to attend the forum. Applicants were assessed based on country of origin, current employment and an essay submission.
Christchurch has enjoyed its most successful conference year, with 699 conferences held in the city during 2005-2006, the largest number to date. Moreover, the average length of stay was longer and the number of delegates higher than ever before. Statistics measured for CCCB by Angus & Associates showed residential conferences had a 34 per cent increase in the number of delegates and a 41 per cent increase in delegate days from the previous year. This trend is set to continue, with a raft of large conferences booked for Christchurch in the coming year, cementing the city’s reputation as New Zealand’s convention capital. Several major international conventions are scheduled for the coming year, including the International Continence Society conference next month which will see 2000 delegates in attendance, and Evolution in June 2007 with 1000 delegates, followed by the prestigious UNESCO 31st Session of the World Heritage Committee also scheduled for June next year.
New York and Fiji might seem worlds apart, but one of the Big Apple’s leading tourism experts has shown how important a “look global, think local” approach can be, travelling to the Fiji Islands to host an exclusive tourism workshop for local Accor Asia Pacific executives and general managers. Executives from Accor’s four hotel and resort properties in the region – the Mercure Hotel Nadi, Mocambo Hotel, Vomo Island managed by Sofitel, and the Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa – participated in the five-day executive program held on Denarau Island. Operated in conjunction with New Zealand’s recently opened Queenstown Resort College, the course was the first of its kind to be offered off-site by the new $7.2 million private hospitality and tourism school. Cornell University professor Dr Hannah Messerli, who specialises in tourism planning and development, was enlisted by the college to create the Fiji executive program as an extension of her Queenstown Resort College visit in September this year.
World’s first underwater resort for Fiji
It costs around $25 million at this point to be a tourist in space, so the chance to dwell in another realm for around $39,000 a week is a snip by comparison. Incentive reward winners will soon have the chance to spend a couple of days in a luxurious suite 15 metres underwater resting next to a coral reef on a secret Fiji island.
Opening for business in 2008, the Poseidon Undersea Resort is being billed as the world’s first underwater resort, and is anticipated to be one of the hot ticket incentive experiences due to its unique nature. The project is being marketed by Nick Reid, a former president of the (now defunct) Australian Incentive Association, who resides in the US.
There’s a measure of hush-hush about the project, with the developers claiming the island with its 5000-acre lagoon does not even appear on maps. Guests will be flown in for a minimum of a week from the Fijian gateway of Nadi. The plans also include a revolving restaurant on the lagoon floor, where the guests who are spending their days in the 28 over-water and 21 beachfront island bures can experience underwater dining. The world’s first underwater wedding chapel provides the developers with a unique marketing opportunity. The 24 underwater suites at the resort will be accessed by an elevator from the surface.
Some 70 per cent of the suites will be enveloped in 100-millimetre-thick clear acrylic and guests will be able to control lighting on their slice of the reef. During daylight hours it will be impossible to see into the pods and at night a window film can be used to ensure privacy.
UK exhibition company Montgomery is targeting the Zhengzhou International Convention & Exhibition Center (ZZICEC) for future business in China. Montgomery is active in China, India, Russia, Poland, Hungary and South Africa where it is also the majority shareholder in Expo Centre, the largest exhibition complex on the African continent. The ZZICEC is a new exhibition and convention centre in a newly developed business district of Zhengzou between the CBD and Zhengzou’s airport. The centre has more than 74,000 square metres of indoor space, and some 38,000 square metres of outdoor exhibition area. Chairman of the ZZICEC is Cliff Wallace, a man known to many Australians during his time at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.
 Frustrated by what they perceive as an ongoing inability by major Australian and Indonesian industry players to finalise a Bali tourism revival plan, a small group of Balinese operators have decided to take matters into their own hands. Comprising eight small hotels and resorts, the fledgling Little Bali Hotel & Resort Company® (LBHRC) has enlisted the aid of two former Australian-based Garuda Indonesia colleagues to help launch its own Bali awareness initiative in Australia. LBHRC’s campaign takes the form of a very tongue in cheek ‘Where the Bali hell are you’ viral marketing campaign which can now be viewed at the website www.wherethebalihellareyou.com. Stage two of the campaign will see the national distribution of heavily discounted LBHRC member accommodation packages. Shot on location in Bali, the main thrust of the viral marketing campaign is to underline that while business may be down from Australia, the rest of the world has in fact started to return in ever-increasing numbers. According to LBHRC co-founder Brett Morgan, who has teamed up with former GA colleague Mike Parker-Brown, Australians have become noticeable on Bali’s beaches, in the restaurants and shops because of their general absence.
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