Singapore’s share of the corporate travel and meetings market has been dropping since 1995. The Lion City now has several things going for it, including the Make It Singapore campaign, which may help reverse the decline, reports WRISNEY TAN.

“In the new environment, where world events are so unpredictable, we have to give assurance to the international market that their business needs will be well met and taken care of.”
STB assistant chief executive leisure,
Gerald Lee

The industry is expecting a good year that will bring at least 10 per cent growth in inbound business volume. Agents handling outbound business traffic are also expecting 10 to 15 per cent growth.

Helping to fuel the expectations is the new Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) business travel and meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) campaign, Make It Singapore, launched late last year.

The S$15 million (US$8.8 million) campaign is expected to bring in 1.8 million visitors and S$3 billion in spending in the corporate travel and MICE sector by next year.

In 2002, Singapore registered 1.5 million business and MICE visitors, a large number of whom were for meetings as more MNCs were being established in Singapore. There was also a total of 8,000 MICE events in 2002.

Low-cost carriers, which have been the talk of the town, are also expected to add pressure on traditional airlines to reduce air fares, potentially adding more numbers to business traffic from the region. As well, Singapore Airlines’ new Airbus 340-500 is also expected to bring in more long-haul visitors from the west.

Hong Thai Travel’s manager inbound, Mr Tony Aw, said: “The Singapore dollar has also weakened against many of the major currencies and we don’t expect it to strengthen too much too soon, which will make holding business meetings in Singapore cheaper.

“The business traffic this year will continue to be led by Indonesia but strong growth is expected from China and Hong Kong. We expect our inbound corporate business to increase by 10 to 12 per cent this year.”

Singapore is also looking to upgrade many of its business and MICE infrastructure.

STB’s former chief of business operations, now assistant chief executive leisure, Mr Gerald Lee, said the next 10 years would be focused on regaining business lost over the last 10 years to regional competitors such as Thailand and Malaysia.

The overall number of MICE events grew on average 10.8 per cent between 1990 and 1994 but fell 5.5 per cent between 1995 and 1999. Figures thereafter were not available. The average growth rate for meetings was – 11.6 per cent from 1996 to 1999 and 32.2 per cent from 2000 to 2002. Incentive travel’s average growth from 1990 to 1994 was 11.8 per cent; it fell by 8.3 per cent between 1995 and 1999 and fell further between 2000 and 2002 by 35.7 per cent.

Mr Lee said: “The competition is catching up fast. More countries are recognising the importance of the business. We always knew the competition was there but we should have been more aware and reacted a lot faster and not allowed our competition to sneak up on us.

“In the new environment, where world events are so unpredictable, we have to give assurance to the international market that their business needs will be well met and taken care of.

“We also need to raise our professionalism and make improvements to the venues and service workforce.”

Plans for Sentosa feature strongly in the upgrading plans. Other improvements include the sprucing up of Suntec Singapore, which is preparing to host the IMF/World Bank Meeting in 2006. Singapore Expo is also looking to expand its space by 16,000m2 with the addition of more conference and meeting space.

In terms of markets, China and India will be groomed.

Mr Lee said: “I see Sentosa playing a major part in the development of the business and MICE industry.

“Tourism products are important for both business and MICE traffic and Sentosa fits this role. The board would like to encourage more investors to build conference and meeting facilities, actual centres with the capacity for 1,000 to 2,000 people and maybe with some hotels around these centres.

“These are some of the ideas we have but we need to work with the Sentosa Leisure Group to identify a conducive space on the island.

“The emergence of China and India are important in shaping the future. Singapore being a neutral country in the middle of Asia can become an important meeting place for key markets within the region. We need to focus more on the Asian markets because there has been a shift in the last 10 years and we need to pay more attention to the region.”