With its clean streets, luxury-leanings and penchant for cutting-edge architecture, Singapore on the surface has much in common with other aspiring financial hubs.
A strong emphasis on urban renewal has guided the high-density country’s development since it was founded in 1819 as a British colony, into the developed, safe, independent country it is today.
This planning ethic is evident in its MICE venues, and fittingly, Singapore’s most iconic structure, the three-towered hotel Marina Bay Sands, is famed for its laser-focused events emphasis.
Despite only existing for seven years, Marina Bay Sands already feels ingrained in the Singapore’s fabric, with tourists flocking to take selfies by its famous infinity pools.
Its success, executive director at Marina Bay Sands Pte, WeeMin Ong, tells EW, is down to fierce competition in the region and its attention to the MICE market.
“MICE is vital for our growth; exhibitors and delegates conduct their business within the Sands Expo, they stay in our hotel, they entertain and network in our various entertainment and F&B options and their spouses shop in the Shoppes. It is an entire eco-system like no other.
“For trade shows, Singapore made its mark as the regional hub for sourcing shows for the oil and gas, telecommunications, and aerospace industries, but as we evolved, we have several higher value sectors including urban planning, financial and water as shown by the exhibitions hosted here at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre. The space we have allows for all sorts of organisations and we see many sectors including machinery, design, fin-tech, etc.
“If we look at the exhibition industry over the last 20 years, the Four Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) all started with similar infrastructures, and are recognised for being clean and safe. Among these destinations, MICE spending is growing and competition is strong. Singapore has traditionally been a MICE leader,” adds Ong. Maintaining this lead means that venues must carve a niche, according to director Marketing and Communications at SingEx Holdings, Ian Fong.
“Compared to competition from Hong Kong, and Thailand, both of which have venues of sizes Singapore does not compete directly with. Instead, we organise events that feel bigger in terms of the event experience. We add value, and provide a whole customer experience.
“Gone are the days when people come for just exhibitions; the industry has evolved. In this digitalised world, it’s all about the individual customer experience. We want to hire forward-looking people, and as an event organiser, we can feedback our experiences to the venue itself. Your business success is ours.”
Fong adds that staying ahead of the curve means carefully selecting market-relevant content: a ‘yin and yang’-like balance. He advocates for content that is challenging enough to push the audiences’ expectations, but not enough to alienate them.
“Digital is a given, but it has become more about content curation, which involves finding out the latest trends. We’re seeing a ‘festivalisation’ of exhibitions as we continue to find out what people want.
“People can come up with the most creative content and unique ideas, but if the customer is not ready then there’s a balance to strike. We aim to provide something that people look forward to. Something that will keep the momentum of the exhibition year on year,” he concludes.
Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre is Singapore’s largest convention and exhibition facility. Together with its convention wing MAX Atria it offers more than 123,000sqm of indoor and outdoor space. The venue welcomes over six million visitors and 600 events every year, ranging from exhibitions, conventions and conferences to corporate meetings, gala dinners and consumer shows.
Singapore EXPO is equipped with 2,500 parking lots and a variety of food and beverage outlets, along with over 500 hotel rooms within walking distance. The venue is located five minutes from Changi International Airport and 20 minutes from the city centre.
Meanwhile, Marina Bay Sands’ Sands Expo and Convention Centre offers exhibition halls on Level 1 and B2, with around 30,000sqm of flexible exhibition space within its 120,000sqm of MICE space. With a ceiling height of 9.45 metres and movable walls, the venue allows the space on each level to be sub-divided into three halls.
“Our logistics team takes care of organiser worries and the venue boasts the largest audiovisual contingent in Singapore. We give full support from our in-house team of technicians, F&B and frontline staff,” says Ong.
Maintenance and refurbishment of the Marina Bay Sands hotel is on-going, with Tower 3’s room refresh and renovation completed and rooms in Tower’s 1 and 2 to follow.
“MICE is a huge part of our business. We host about 3,000 shows per year, and Singapore is the number one meeting city for the last seven years. We do around 70 trade shows per year. MICE visitors also dine in our restaurants and use the hotel, so it is a huge revenue source for us. We plan to build new facilities near the hotel for more rooms and MICE space soon. The space will be multifunctional,” Ong adds.
No rundown of Singapore is complete without Suntec, which recently hosted UFI’s Asia-Pacific Conference, its Open Seminar.
With more than 42,000sqm of exhibition space, the venue features wide loading bays located beside exhibition halls, which enable access for faster move-in and out during events. High ceilings with multiple rigging points allow room for creativity in elevating exhibitors’ booth presence.
During a tour of the venue, EW visited the operations room, where the team monitor airflows, heating and even the water temperature.
The team also manage crises on a 24-hour basis, monitoring everything from parking space availability to unwelcome visitors.
For organisers, the team manage last minute orders, like additional chairs and lighting. “We invest in technology as an enabler,” says Suntec’s CEO Arun Madhok. “We are trying to upgrade the experience. We wanted something more flexible that allows clients to enjoy a seamless, customised experience. The free wifi is used to connect people instantly, and to make technology seamless. Just adjusting the mood lighting or shifting the movable walls can create a new feel to an exhibition. This is done via digital automated systems so we don’t need people standing by,” he continues.
“The investment was undertaken because we wanted to see what could be possible. We did it to push the MICE industry forward. We had no idea under what timeline we would make the investment back, but the money we put down was recouped in just two years.”
“There’s certainly no shortage of quality venues here,” adds UFI’s managing director Kai Hattendorf. “Singapore is reaching out to visitors and asking what they are lacking compared to other destinations.”
As a country built on listening to what people want, and reacting smartly, Singapore has elevated itself into a truly world class MICE destination
