MICE

There is a paradox in Venice. The city is a marvellous destination for incentive trips or small prestige conferences. Its superb 18th-century palaces, prestigious hotels - Bauer, Cipriani, Danieli or Palazzo Gritti, to name but a few - and the romantic atmosphere of the historic city along its canals make it...

Until the pandemic, Vienna was one of Europe's most important cities for the congress and conference industry. In fact, the Austrian capital has played this role for 200 years. The MICE industry remains one of the driving forces behind Vienna's economic activity. In fact, it has been incorporated into the...

When you think of Salzburg, you think of Mozart, music festivals and one of the most beautiful Baroque old towns in Europe. For business travellers, it's above all an exceptional geographical location on an east-west axis between Vienna and Munich and towards the Adriatic. It also boasts world-class hospitality facilities and a very high quality of life...

What is Lille Grand Palais' strategy in launching this new hybrid offering? Hervé Vauvillier - We could have positioned ourselves on a new purely digital offering, but we opted for the hybrid approach. This can be explained by the DNA of Lille Grand Palais: a convention centre is there...

The Maldives, a tourist paradise with a string of islets dotted around the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, is dreaming of just such an idea. Before the pandemic, this paradise managed to attract 1.7 million international visitors, a figure that rose by 14.5% between 2018 and 2019. At the time, France was one of the top ten markets...

In a few hours' time, Thomas Pesquet will take part in the Alpha mission and take command of the International Space Station (ISS): a first for a Frenchman, and an experience that ordinary mortals will never get close to. To compensate, Futuroscope has decided to launch a new hotel concept. The "Station Cosmos...

Efficiency and mastery of destiny: in Singapore, we are proud - very proud, in fact - of our ability to anticipate, plan, develop and, above all, succeed. The Covid-19 pandemic will certainly have swept away some of the certainties of the City-State, whose economy relies on trade with the rest of the planet. In 2020, GDP contracted by 5.8...

"Travel corridors", "travel bubbles": these two expressions have become part of everyday vocabulary in many regions, to designate a country-to-country arrangement that allows foreign tourists to return. This is particularly the case in the Asia-Pacific region, where Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore are already talking about or applying this partial opening-up...

Emmanuel Macron therefore spoke at 8pm on Wednesday to announce the reconfinement of French territory from the morning of Sunday 3 April, and for four weeks. The measures announced on 18 April for 16 départements - which have since been extended to three additional départements - are therefore being applied across the board. Starting with the ban on inter-regional travel,...

On Thursday 25 March, tourism and MICE professionals are gathering for a face-to-face conference at the Estrel Hotel in Berlin. The aim of the conference is to demonstrate that face-to-face meetings could once again become possible thanks to the introduction of rapid antigen tests. The conference is organised by...

What did you expect from the hybrid event organised by PCMA in Singapore earlier this year? Stéphane Leleu - The main objective was to observe how an international hybrid event was set up, taking into account the health constraints in force. The travel itinerary from Paris to arrival at the hotel, the day-to-day management of travel and interaction between delegates. In...

Tomorrow's events will either be hybrid or they won't be: that's the message that has been percolating through the meetings & events community for some months now. An ecosystem that is trying its hand at the virtual 100 % for want of being able to meet up 'in the real world', but which is clearly banking on the emergence of a compromise combining face-to-face and remote events,...

The Strasbourg Convention Bureau won't wait for the health crisis to end before allowing companies to bring their teams together and keep them motivated. Despite the current situation, companies need to keep their teams mobilised, launch new products, organise strategic meetings or more entertaining activities... With this in mind, agencies in Strasbourg are vying with one another in their ingenuity...

The future of travel is on the move. And while we know that the road ahead will be a long one, Singapore is already showing the way. Buoyed by the success of its sanitary measures, the Asian hub intends to take in its wake all the players likely to shape the travel of tomorrow, and with it the organisation of MICE events...

What does organising the Convening Leaders conference mean for Singapore? Edward Koh - The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Marina Bay Sands have partnered with PCMA to set up a global distribution centre for Convening Leaders, to host speakers, expert panels and offer face-to-face experiences....

To bring the PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) "Convening Leaders" event out of its American backyard - an historic first in six decades - it needed a context as unprecedented as the health crisis. Above all, it needed to identify a destination that would embody the near future of MICE, while offering guarantees...

How do you see the Meetings & Events market in 2021? Arnaud Katz - The Meetings & Events market will undoubtedly gradually regain its strength, as the need to get back together will be paramount after the year we've just had. There is a deep-seated desire in the market to get back on its feet, both...

In Asia, Singapore and Thailand are among the countries most in need of reopening their borders. For completely different reasons. Singapore is the commercial and financial hub of the whole of South-East Asia. The country therefore needs to re-anchor itself to international movements. The Thai economy, on the other hand, is heavily dependent...

The Thai chain Dusit International has officially set up in Singapore with the opening of the Dusit Thani Laguna Singapore. This futuristic-looking resort comprises 198 rooms and suites as well as eight private pavilions. All set in the heart of the Laguna National Golf & Country Club, one of the largest golf courses in Singapore. The hotel is...

In France, anything is possible! "says Thomas Faizant, co-founder of Prochaine Escale. The country is full of secret places, with a wide variety of landscapes and an incredible wealth of culture... In just a few hours, you can go from mountain peaks to sandy beaches, from hectic city life to the peace and quiet of the countryside". Playing on...