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Marina Bay comes calling

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Marina Bay Sands in Singapore

MARINA Bay Sands’ meetings, incentives, conferences and events (Mice)-led integrated resort (IR) is a one-stop destination for business travellers and meeting planners alike, Mike Lee, vice-president of sales, tells TTN. “As Asia’s leading destination for business, leisure and entertainment, we house world-class meeting facilities, celebrity chef restaurants, luxury shopping, Broadway musicals and blockbuster museum exhibitions all under one roof.”

Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands welcomed 40.3 million visitors in 2013, and witnessed a record-high average hotel occupancy rate of 99 per cent the same year.

“On the Mice front, we broke records in 2013 with over 70 tradeshows, compared to 51 in 2012,” Lee says. Since opening, the IR has won more than 50 new-to-Singapore tradeshows, as well as multi-year contracts which saw many significant returning shows, such as Art Stage Singapore, World Cities Summit and World Retail Congress. 

By offering one of Asia’s leading business venues, Marina Bay Sands is capable of hosting both intimate and large-scale tradeshows and conferences, such as ITB Asia, of which Marina Bay Sands is official hotel partner from 2014 to 2016. Through this three-year partnership, Marina Bay Sands will host international buyers, opening receptions, VIP C-suite lunches, as well as offer free Wi-Fi to all delegates.

Mike Lee

Featuring over 120,000 square metres of flexible space with 250 meeting rooms and the capacity for 2,000 exhibition booths, the Sands Expo and Convention Centre can host up to 45,000 delegates at one time. It also has Southeast Asia’s largest ballroom, which can accommodate up to 11,000 delegates theatre-style or 6,600 banquet-style. In addition to the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, there are also a variety of creative and unique event venues found across the property that are set for more intimate, small to medium-sized functions.

“Since the start of 2014, we have already confirmed 15 new-to-Singapore shows for the year. These shows are bigger in terms of scale and prominence, for instance new-to-market art fair Maison & Objet (held in March 2014), security conference series Blackhat Asia (held in March 2014), as well as the Milan Image Art Fair in October 2014. Being the venue of choice for these shows is a demonstration of our ability to deliver a quality platform for them to debut in Asia.

“We also strive to deliver quality service and constantly assess the demands of our customers so that we are able to make adjustments to present an even stronger product and experience to attract new and repeat visitation.”

Marina Bay Sands’ top five foreign source markets for the hotel in 2013 were Japan, China, Indonesia, Korea and Australia.

“Our growth has also benefited the country’s tourism sector overall between 2009(before the IR opened) and 2013, Singapore’s tourist arrivals increased 59 per cent to 15.5 million,” claims the vice president of sales. “Being an ISO:20121 certified property simply means all of our meetings are already green to begin with. These sustainable standards are consistent across our meeting facilities as well as operational and back-end processes. In addition to all green meetings being an opt-out standard now, we also have the resources and knowledge to go one step further to meet clients’ specific green goals, such as providing solutions for a carbon-offset meeting, or opportunities to give back to the community through volunteering programmes,” concludes Lee.

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