Singapore has clinched the title of ‘Top International Meetings City’ for the third consecutive year, affirming its standing as a leading business events destination, ahead of some 1,700 cities.
The latest 2009 global rankings published by the Union of International Associations (UIA) also showed that Singapore climbed a spot, from third position, to be placed as the second ‘Top International Meetings Country’ behind the United States.
And for the 26th consecutive year, Singapore remains both the top city and country to hold meetings in Asia.
Secretary General of the UIA, Jacques de Mevius, said Singapore is an increasingly strong market leader in international associations meetings.
He said this year’s UIA Statistics Report reflects an impressive five-year growth trend.
Singapore hosted close to 700 meetings last year that met UIA’s qualifying criteria, representing a growth of 8 per cent over 2008.
Chief Executive of the Singapore Tourism Board, Aw Kah Peng, attributed the success to sound business fundamentals and the unwavering support and hard work of the industry partners.
She said what is attractive to an event organiser is the fact that the city is constantly re-inventing itself and innovating.
Singapore’s Business Travel, and Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) industry continues to surge ahead.
Thus far, from September 2010 to 2016, there will be a total of 160 association conferences with an expected attendance of more than 170,000 international delegates and participants.
They include the World Model United Nations (WorldMUN) 2011; Public Broadcasters International 2011; the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Conference 2012; the 13th International Conference of Associated research Centres for Urban Underground Space (ACUUS) 2012; 2013 International Congress on Ultrasonics; Asian-Pacific Congress on Computational Mechanics (APCOM) 2013; and the 8th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health 2016.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 24 Aug 2010