While travel may be on hold for now, the MICE industry is staying proactive by sending care packages, offering support and more during these unusual times.
Here is the weekly MICE news from Australia and around the world.
Business event planners enjoy taste of Cairns & Great Barrier Reef
Business event organisers who postponed educational visits to North Queensland due to the COVID-19 restrictions have received social distancing kits with luxurious Cairns & Great Barrier Reef pamper products. Tourism Tropical North Queensland General Manager Rosie Douglas said Business Events Cairns & Great Barrier Reef created the custom care packages so their business associates could enjoy local member products while they were social distancing. “They will be able to relax in a colourful Crystalbrook Collection robe with aromatherapy oils from Pullman Cairns International’s in-house luxury Vie Spa,” Rosie Douglas said. Other inclusions were a delicious bar of Daintree Chocolate, a bottle of native Australian dukkha from Ochre Restaurant and Nu Nu Restaurant’s iconic citrus salt complete the package with a stay-well card from the Business Events Cairns & Great Barrier Reef team. Rosie Douglas said the suspension of events during the COVID-19 restrictions would create pent-up demand for business events once Australians were able to travel again.
Director of Sponsorship at ASN Events Nitesh Patel said the little act of kindness by the Business Events Cairns & Great Barrier Reef team put a big smile on his face. “I was meant to fly to Cairns for an eight-day holiday prize filled with tours and trips and quite frankly a load of super fun stuff. Unfortunately, the virus put an end to that,” Nitesh Patel said.
CINZ launches recovery plan for business events industry
New Zealand’s business events industry association, CINZ is looking towards post-COVID-19 recovery by launching a new event, BE Reconnected, for December 2020. BE Reconnected will focus on re-engaging and reconnecting vital industry relationships to help kick start business recovery and will be hosted at Vodafone Events Centre in Auckland on 1 December. The event will replace this year’s multi-day MEETINGS exhibition which was due to be held this month in Auckland. The CINZ 2020 Conference and Annual General Meeting will follow on 2 December.
Monaco applies customer-centric cancellation policy
The Principality of Monaco is renowned for offering a tailor-made response to business tourism professionals and given continued consideration of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, the Monaco Convention Bureau and its partners have been mobilised to propose new dates to their clients while guaranteeing the most suitable solutions according to the formats of each event, especially for those that have been organised in Monaco for several years. Considering the dramatic extent of the crisis, all the business tourism partners are fully invested in offering utmost flexibility to their clients making sure they are not penalised for changing their plans. Therefore, most of the hotels and the convention centre, Grimaldi Forum Monaco, have, whenever possible, waived contractual cancellation fees and postponed deposits. This policy has also been extended by most of the hotels of the Principality for individual and group reservations already confirmed for the 2020 Grand Prix, which has been cancelled a few days ago.
