"Icing on the cake" as Singapore is ranked top city by UIA

Even as the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) recognised winners of its second Singapore Business Events Awards, it had another piece of good news to celebrate.

Opening the awards ceremony held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr S Iswaran, said that this was the "icing on the cake" and announced that Singapore was recently ranked the world's Top International Meeting City for the first time by the Union of International Associations (UIA).

"This is a historic milestone and a testament that the public-private-people partnership to enhance the MICE industry's professionalism and business excellence is bearing fruit. Singapore was also ranked Asia's top city for meetings for the 25 th consecutive year and Asia's top country for meetings in the same report."

In 2007, BTMICE (Business Travel, Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conventions and Exhibition) visitors constituted approximately 29% or close to three million of Singapore's total visitor arrivals, and these visitors generated over S$5 billion or 39% of the total tourism receipts. In line with its Tourism 2015 roadmap, the STB aims to raise the BTMICE contribution to S$10.5 billion by 2015.

He also unveiled upgrading plans for Singapore Expo to meet the evolving needs and increasing demands of business events organisers and business travellers, and thanked the MICE industry partners for rallying behind the STB's Strategic Clusters Approach, and for subscribing to the "BE in Singapore" incentive scheme which has supported some 450 business events since its inception in 2006.

At the ceremony, seven awards were bestowed on exemplary industry players ranging from Professional Conference Organisers (PCO), Professional Exhibition Organisers (PEO) and Destination Management Companies (DMC) to venues (such as exhibition/conference venues, hotels), freight forwarders and other related companies such as stand contractors, AV, production and staging companies.

The winners were selected by a judging panel consisting of 21 judges who are industry leaders, professionals and practitioners in the international MICE industry as well as non-MICE business leaders from different industry sectors. The pool of distinguished judges provided a well-rounded and objective evaluation of the various entries and nominations over a ten-day judging period.

"Congratulations to all the winners and a very special thank you to all the judges involved in this year's Singapore Business Events Awards. The winners have done the industry proud through the hard work and dynamic business events that they have delivered. Their professionalism, creativity, service excellence and dedication in promoting Singapore's business events industry set a high benchmark for the rest of the industry to emulate and I encourage the industry to continue to strive for even higher standards which are critical to Singapore's continued success as an award-winning MICE destination," said Mr Aloysius Arlando, Assistant Chief Executive, Business Travel and MICE Group, Singapore Tourism Board.