Prioritising privacy in Makati

Tag Archives: Bruce Heilbuth

Like other cities in the Philippines, Manila has its challenges and drawbacks, not least the traffic snarls and pollution. Its best assets, in my view, are its unfailingly cheerful people and splendid hotels.

I’ve been lucky enough to stay at a selection of really good Manila hotels, including the “Edsa” Shangri-la and Crowne Plaza in Ortigas. They have outstanding facilities in common, at a remarkably competitive price, usually less than half what you’d pay in a comparable property in, say, New York or Sydney and with vastly better service. Recently I checked in for three nights at one of Manila’s best and newest – the five-star Fairmont located in Makati, the city’s main business, shopping and leisure hub.

It represents a step forward for tourism in the city and country, say its marketers, with the last luxury hotel in the area having been built way back in 1993-94.

The 280-room Fairmont is incorporated into a 30-storey tower that includes the 32 all-suite Raffles Makati hotel as well as the 237 one- to four-bedroom Raffles Residences, set up for short- or long-term stays. They’re all owned by the same parent company (FRHI). What makes it especially attractive for business and MICE visitors is that it’s been conceived by architects Arquitectonica and interior designer Bent Severin to ensure guests’ privacy, as far as possible, according to Monique Toda (pictured, left), Director of Communications.

“The design allows for exclusivity,” explains Monique, a 27-year veteran of the hotel business. Its lobby, for example, unlike the cavernous foyers of many hotels, has been created as an assembly of separate, partitioned spaces where people can get together and talk in relative solitude.

“We view ourselves as a kind of oasis in the city and place a high priority on people’s privacy,” explains Monique. “A lot of our conference guests or business travellers like that; they don’t want to be stared at, or to feel ‘out there’ in any way.”

In addition to “Fairmont Gold,” the executive room and lounge offer, the hotel has over 1,700 square meters of meeting and function space, including an 859-square-meter ballroom accommodating up to 600. Additional meeting rooms cater for 30 to 40.

“Having Raffles next door and part of the same complex allows us to attract leisure travellers,” says Marketing Communications Coordinator Bianca Rodriguez (pictured, right).

“The Fairmont is almost exclusively for business people, and we generally tend to offer better rates in July-August.” Another agreeable feature is the “Willow Stream” spa, a headily-scented facility covering 1,200 square meters and including a hair salon, nail studio, mineral as well as outdoor pool.

From around US$200 a day The rooms at the Fairmont start at around US$200 a day, and it offers a swag of conference packages.

Take the “Spectrum Buffet” full-day package for up to 30 people. It includes use of a meeting room for eight hours, morning and afternoon refreshments, lunch, all the usual IT and wifi whistles and bells, free local phone calls, a conference “butler,” and complimentary car park tickets for 10% of the guests. That package is PHP2,280 per person, or just over $50.

Contact the hotel at makati@fairmont.com.

The Siteseer was a guest of Fairmont Hotel in Makati.

The Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre opened ten years ago, and has helped ensure southeast Queensland punches above its weight in the scale and quality of events it attracts. In an interview with The Siteseer, Adrienne Readings, the first woman to be appointed general manager of a convention centre in Australia, looks back on a tumultuous decade and reveals how her facility provides the kind of value that keeps clients coming back.

The Siteseer: Adrienne, you’ve hosted more than 2,000 events in ten years. What’s the secret of your success?

Adrienne Readings: Five-star-quality service. We’re the biggest venue for business events on the coast but being biggest hasn’t made us complacent; quite the opposite. We’re in a competitive hospitality region and know our service has to be world-class so, as a business, we challenge ourselves daily and focus on continuously improving the venue. I believe that’s why we’ve established a strong reputation and developed a solid repeat portfolio. To put it into perspective, two of the past three years have been our best in profitability and cost control.

Our state as a whole performs well against some better-known locations or bigger cities. The fact that we can attract world conferences and win conference bids against some of them tells me we’re doing something right. Indeed we’ve emerged as a serious business events destination and venue that attracts thousands of delegates and delivers an ingredient that sets us apart. Twenty-seven of the original 130 team members, myself included, have been here since opening.

SS: How many visitors have you hosted?

AR: More than two million, who’ve injected about $1.6 billion into the local economy. We average more than 160 business events a year, generating 350,000 delegate days. And we’ve got a broad audience market – from conferences, banquets, consumer shows and concerts through to televised sporting events.

We’ve had the likes of UB40, Pink, Rihanna, the National Final Rodeo, ASP World Surfing Awards and the Supanova Pop Culture Expo that attracts close to 30,000 fans a year. The Centre is also home to big expos including those of Mitre 10, Subway and Bakers Delight, as well as Microsoft.

SS: What impact has the centre had on Queensland and its events industry?

AR: There was a lot of excitement when the state’s third convention centre was built! It increased the region’s event capacity sixfold and opened up opportunities, and of course the community welcomed us with open arms. There’s no doubt it’s aided the Gold Coast in attracting conferences that would have otherwise gone elsewhere.

The centre also brought a lot of employment to the region, not just to itself but to businesses that have benefited from the visitors and events we attract. We work collaboratively with industry and the Broadbeach precinct to market the whole destination. What’s good for the Gold Coast is good for us.

SS: Any event recently about which you and your colleagues are especially proud?

AR: They all differ but some are more complex or pose more challenges logistically. Transitioning from a conference to multiple concurrent sessions, from a trade exhibition to a basketball court overnight or from rodeo to a special event are things we do every day. For me our greatest achievement is receiving the trust and respect of large corporations and the people we work with closely.

But take the annual IGA-Metcash Supermarket Expo. It attracts 3,000 delegates and the client uses up every square metre of our exhibition space by turning it into a supermarket. It grows in size each year. Many of our team, from IT to AV and operations, work on it months in advance to make it a success. It was our first major client and we’re proud they’ve kept coming back for 10 years.

SS: You’ve been quoted in the past as saying events organisers seek high-end technology and a specially tailored product. How are you meeting those requirements?

AR: Staying relevant and fresh is key. It’s obviously vital to keep abreast of the latest trends and provide the best infrastructure and technology. So we regularly audit our resources to ensure we can meet the demands of an ever-changing market.

Our current priority is to ensure we reinvest in the product so everything including our service stays at a benchmarked level. We’ve upgraded our bandwidth and wi-fi capabilities in recent years, and our next priority is to ensure our technology is ahead of its time. That will allow us to think ahead strategically about future events, because IT and AV are essential components in this process. We receive great feedback on our food and service which tells me we’re meeting our clients’ needs here.

SS: How does the centre compare with competitors in offering value for money?

AR: There are some things that can’t be quantified. Some of our longstanding clients say the reason they come back time and time again is, of course, value for money but, more importantly, [they say] it’s for tailored service money can’t buy.

What does that mean in practical terms? One simple rule is we ask clients what their goals are and how we can contribute to their success. In addition our team members say hello to everyone they meet, they help clients feel at home, research how we can make a meal exceptional, and really pay attention to the finest details so customers feel looked after like nowhere else. Our current tagline is ‘love is in the details,’ and the little things make all the difference. We take a similar approach with suppliers. We work well together because our goals are similar.

Value is also embodied in services that event organisers love, like free wi-fi for more than 2,000 concurrent internet users, although this is becoming more and more standard now. When we introduced this two years ago we were one of the first convention centres to do it. We were the first facility of its kind in the world to offer EarthCheck Gold certification, which ensures we operate to the highest environmental standard. Again this can’t be quantified but it’s a contributing factor to why some prefer our venue.

SS: Tell us about your ‘linkage’ program.

AR: We piloted the Linkage Grant Program which aims to support academics and professionals who are prepared to participate in their trade or professional association and nurture future convention hosts who will bid for conventions for the Gold Coast. The program serves a twofold purpose – to attract more international business events to the centre while benefiting six potential grant recipients who each get $5,000 to fund expenses. The program attracted double the number of applications this year, and we awarded four grants. International conferences have long lead times, of up to five years or more, so the recipients may be working on attracting events years away. The program is an investment in the future, and our community.

SS: What are the biggest challenges facing your centre and industry, in your view, and how will you overcome them?

AR: Competition is our biggest challenge. There’s a lot more of it because people over the years have come to realise the value of business events. Our best strategy is to continue working with national industry bodies and regionally with partners like Gold Coast Business Events to raise our profile. We must also attract international market opportunities through joint trade shows and business exchange sessions in the Asia Pacific.

The ever-increasing trend for larger space and concurrent sessions for conventions means that as a venue we’ll need to become larger. Big events require a lot of concurrent spaces; we need more space because we’re losing those. There’s definitely a growing need, once again, to expand but that’s up to the owners, the state government. Expanding would be a great legacy for the Gold Coast on the back of securing the Commonwealth Games.

SS: What must be done by the industry and regulators to ensure a bright future?

AR: Funding for business events and a better understanding in the greater community and government of the immense of value of business events are essential. But the Business Events Council of Australia does a great job helping persuade the Commonwealth Government to increase its support for attracting international conventions and exhibitions.

Reporting on the benefits and flow-on effect that business events generally have for destinations is important in raising our profile and creating awareness. If we can continue to prove our case we can use our industry position to further increase support and ensure a bright future.

Recent day delegate package – AUD69 per person

See here:

http://www.gccec.com.au/love-is-in-our-day-delegate-package.html

http://www.gccec.com.au/news.html

A colleague, a single gent aged 40, has just come back from a long weekend, four-day, break, escaping Sydney’s chill for the warmth of northern Queensland.

While the beach was terrific, and he has fond memories of strolling along the strand in 27-degree sunshine on his last morning at the resort, he appreciates now more than ever why more and more Australians are choosing to holiday in Asia.

When he arrived at the five-star hotel, no one greeted him at the front door, the reception generally was indifferent, and no one offered to help him with his bags.

His room, while adequate, was nowhere near the five-star standard he’d experienced in Asia, and set him back more than $300 a night. The restaurant was overpriced, and the cost of breakfast, which was ordinary, exceeded thirty dollars. When he was looking to have a relaxing drink outside on the Sunday evening, he discovered that the poolside bar was closed at 5pm.

When, by five o’clock one day, his room hadn’t been made up, he called housekeeping to ask if they’d forgotten him. A hotel staff member replied snippily, “we’ll get to you, we’re short-staffed.”

My colleague believes his experience of five-star, or luxury resort accommodation (ie, under $500 per night) points to a bigger issue: one of Australia’s inability to be competitive with its Asian and Pacific tourism destination counterparts in high-end accommodation.

The Australian properties, especially in non-urban centres, he says, are at best poor cousins of their competitors. “I find they’re understaffed, services and facilities are perfunctory and governed by strict safety rules and regulations, rooms are clinical [read low-maintenance], and furnishings are spartan and/or ageing and outdated.”

His experience, frankly, is not unusual. That may be why, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of Australian residents travelling overseas for trips of less than a year has grown at an unprecedented rate in recent years. In the 12 months to June 2010, 6.8 million overseas trips were made by Australians, up from 2.1 million two decades earlier. And in 2012-13, numbers had grown again, with 8.4 million Australian residents departing short-term.

Emotional considerations aside – such as the officiousness of some Australian staff who dress down non-complying or ‘whingeing’ guests, and the apparent unease that Australian hospitality service staff at times demonstrate towards serving other Australians – my colleague acknowledges the problem is linked to intractable economic issues. These include the strong dollar, falling foreign tourism numbers, a serious skilled labour shortage and the high cost of labour.

“I don’t believe there’s an easy answer, or that indeed it’s just a matter of Australia ‘pulling its socks up’,” he adds. “Without huge structural change in the economic make-up of the high-end tourism accommodation offering, there’s little prospect of this changing any time soon.”

Nevertheless, the first step in addressing any problem, always, is to acknowledge that it exists.

While taking a cab from Tbilisi International Airport recently, I saw that the main road into the Georgian capital was called George W. Bush Avenue. If that wasn’t tribute enough to the former US president, the road signs were adorned with actual pictures of him, albeit now faded.

When Bush visited the former Soviet republic (Stalin’s birthplace) in 2005, its then-president Mikheil Saakashvili revealed that US officials had told him it “was the best reception the American president has ever had”.

This was especially interesting, for me, in my first visit to Georgia: how pro-Western the place is.

In Tbilisi’s pubs and restaurants, many of which could be in Paris or New York City, live bands play Dylan and Oasis classics and stylish shops and boutiques sell Italian and German brands. As I was having a beer at a street café one evening, two black-clad young “Goths,” safety pins securely fastened in noses and ears, strolled self-consciously past. The next day I visited the Museum of Soviet Occupation, a monument to Georgians murdered and imprisoned during seven decades of Soviet rule. Today the country’s major parties are pledged to bring it into the EU and NATO.

It all means visitors from the West are warmly welcomed, mostly in halting English, as I discovered during a week-long stay that included several days in Tbilisi – some of whose buildings and orthodox churches date back to the fifth century – a road trip to the mountain town of Kazbegi just south of the Russian border, and a few days at a German-owned wine chateau in the Caucasus Mountains.

Physically diverse and in places wonderfully beautiful, the nation the size of Ireland is a feast for the senses for sightseers, gourmands and wine buffs. Driving from Tbilisi, we crossed grassy plains shimmering in summer heat, passed steep-sided canyons and glacier-fed rivers, one unfortunately named “Turdo”, marvelled at the cathedral-like peacefulness of beech forests and traversed upland meadows carpeted in flowers and framed by snow-covered peaks.

More MICE visits

Not surprisingly, Georgia is gaining traction as a new and exciting MICE destination, as a big international wine tourism conference, held at the five-star Marriott in Tbilisi in March 2014, attests. Simplified visa procedures and a visa-free regime for around 100 nationalities, including Australians, are aimed at encouraging it. Tbilisi airport is surprisingly well served, offering nonstop flights to 33 cities a week.

Travellers with American and Australian dollars benefit from the exchange rate against the local currency, the lari. On the day I arrived, I had lunch at the big and pleasant “Begeli” restaurant on the city’s outskirts: rich lamb stew; cheese, mushroom and mince-filled khinkali dumplings (sensational); spicy Georgian sausage, delivered on a sizzling plate; tarragon-flavoured mushroom broth; freshly baked crusty bread; tomato and cucumber salad with walnut dressing; and beers all round. The bill for four people: AUD39.

Later in the trip I relished the full gamut of Georgian fare, which is wonderful – and robust. If you’re seeking nouvelle cuisine, forget it. A specialty here is khachapuri (pictured), a pizza-like pie filled with fresh suluguni (pickled) cheese, one version of which is topped with runny egg. The khinkali are fist-sized balls of dough stuffed with cheesy sauce or spicy mince and closed by a pastry nexus at one end. (Eating these knots is apparently a no-no, though we did once or twice.) But my favourite was sacivi, consisting of a whole fried chicken served in a clay dish and smothered with a salty walnut, garlic, cream and mayonnaise sauce. The calorie count probably topped a billion, but it tasted too good to matter.

‘Rooms Hotel’

Of the hotels at which we stayed, the most outstanding meetings site was in the remote mountain town of Kazbegi: a three-storey timber resort set against the 5,000-foot high dormant volcano, Mount Kazbek. The peak is usually shrouded in cloud, but every now and then it shyly revealed its spectacular snowy head.

Georgian investors who built this hotel a couple of years ago might have taken more trouble in developing a snappier name: “Rooms Hotel”. But it’s an excellent property with great service. It has a well-equipped conference room, banquet facilities, wifi, international TV channels, a vast library sprinkled with comfy lounge chairs and a good, reasonably priced a-la-carte menu.

The rooms are elegantly simple with bare wooden floors and plush beds. There’s a huge indoor pool and spa, even a small casino. Business groups can organise hikes or mountain climbs of varying degrees of difficulty, hire quad or trail bikes or organise horse-riding treks into the surrounding wilderness.

Indeed the location is a boon for lovers of the outdoors. When I visited in June, the alpine meadows surrounding the town were dense with grass and flowers; indeed many of the perennials that bloom in the gardens of English country houses apparently have their origins here, taken home by Victorian botanists. In the winter the region provides spectacular skiing for those preferring to avoid the crowded slopes of Western Europe.

From USD80 per night

Standard room prices at “Rooms Hotel” from Monday to Friday start from $80, increasing to $100 at weekends. The town of Kazbegi, also known as Stepantsminda, is a two-hour drive from Tbilisi.

Contact the hotel at roomskazbegi@roomshotel.com. Web: www.roomshotel.ge.

The Siteseer was a paying guest at Rooms Hotel.

In Istanbul recently, my wife and daughter-in-law had an experience that shook them up before leaving them feeling invigorated. They each paid around AUD70 for a scrub and massage at Cemberlitas Hamami, a Turkish baths complex built in 1584 by Nur Banu, the wife of a sultan.

In a steam-filled room, lit by windows in a domed ceiling, they were soaped, pummelled and pounded by robust Turkish female masseuses, after which they each had a massage. “I feel defoliated, clean, scrubbed, relaxed . . . wonderful,” my wife said afterwards.

Later that day, in a guide book, she found a reproduction of an ancient picture of the hamam – and recognised it. The interior of the baths had changed little in four-and-a-half centuries.

Much of Istanbul’s old city, the Sultanahmet, is like that, a dreamscape washed by the froth of history yet, to visitors at least, seemingly impervious to the pressures of ballooning population or changes ushered in by the digital age.

For incentive travellers, especially history buffs, Istanbul can be a thrilling destination. Originally known as Byzantium, it was already a thousand years old when the emperor Constantine the Great made it the capital of the Roman empire in AD 330, when it became known as Constantinople. In 1453 it was captured by the Turks, becoming the capital of the since-dissolved Ottoman empire.

It pays to plan

While even locals will tell you the secular, bustling city of 14 million is no longer the bargain destination it once was, with the Turkish lira relatively stable, Istanbul offers value if you plan ahead and take time to seek good deals. A decent hotel room can cost as little as $85 in Sultanahmet and a typically fabulous meal of antep ezmesi – a spicy tomato, chilli, cucumber and herb dip served with flat bread – börek (savoury meat-and-cheese-filled pastry), köfte (meat balls), salad and pickles will cost $15-20 in a myriad enticing restaurants. Getting around on trams, ferries and the new underground rail line is cheap – about a dollar a ride – and entry to historical sites is free or inexpensive.

Most know that Istanbul’s uniqueness can be attributed in part to the fact that it straddles Europe and Asia, the continents separated by the Bosphorus, the narrow, incomparably beautiful strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara and Aegean.

As one scribe has observed, visitors should ideally approach Istanbul from the ocean, as most travellers did for the first twenty-six centuries of its existence. For me, today, it’s thrilling to catch a ferry (around $1.20 per ride) across the Bosphorus, with the sun sparkling on the water and the forest of spires, turrets and minarets of the city etched against the sky.

Istanbul’s benevolent face belies a brutal but compelling past. More blood has been spilled on the ground on which camera-carrying tourists stroll than few other places on the planet. In AD 193, for instance, when refugees from Byzantium tried to escape besieging Romans by ship, they met an awful fate. In his book, Istanbul, the Imperial City, veteran American author John Freely quotes a Roman consul Dio Cassius: “The next day the horror was increased still more for the townspeople, for when the water had subsided, the whole sea in the vicinity of Byzantium was covered with corpses and wrecks and blood.” The survivors had to surrender to the Romans, who promptly murdered all surviving soldiers and magistrates of the city.

Murder most foul

Murder was especially commonplace among the city’s rulers, many of whom drank themselves to death or were murdered in turn. One sultan amused himself by killing innocent passers-by with a bow and arrow. In January 1595, when Sultan Murat III died, his eldest son and successor Mehmet (pictured above) had all nineteen of his younger brothers strangled to ensure none would challenge him. Like many of their kin, they were buried in the garden of Haghia Sophia, the great church erected by Justinian (now a museum), which is adjacent to Topkapi Sarayi, the imperial residence and harem of the Ottoman sultans for four centuries, and the huge Blue Mosque, built in the early seventeenth century.

All of these attractions are open to the public and located in the old city on the European side of the Bosphorus. Like Paris’s Left Bank, this area is a maze of winding streets, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and cosy hostelries.

One of the most enchanting is the Kybele Hotel (pictured), where we spent a night. Its interior is a melange of maroons, mirrors, marble, bric-a-brac and objets d’art, its public spaces linked by mysterious staircases and filled with nooks of the kind that might, in true Byzantine tradition, lend themselves to intrigue and Machiavellian plotting. The lounges, restaurants, bars and bedrooms are illuminated by over 4,000 lamps.

The hotel is within easy walking distance of attractions like the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, the spice and grand bazaars and the extraordinary Basilica Cistern (below), said to be one of several hundred ancient reservoirs beneath the city and home to huge, slow-moving fish.

Willing to deal

Rates at Kybele Hotel start at around AUD190 per night, which includes an excellent buffet breakfast, and for groups the owners will negotiate a better rate, according to manager Vefa Yuksukcuoglu, who’s been working at the family-run property for 19 years. “When the booking’s solid we’re happy to be flexible,” he says. “On our ratings feedback, we always score ten for location and cleanliness and nine or ten for value – I think that says something about this hotel.”

A ferry ride across the Bosphorus is a terrific way to gain perspective of the city. And a short trip in the Tünel, an underground funicular connecting the quarters of Karaköy and Beyoğlu, is worth, say, a half-day outing. Beyoğlu is the most active shopping, art, entertainment and nightlife centre of Istanbul. Its main thoroughfare, İstiklâl Caddesi, is a pedestrianised 1.6 kilometres street of shops, hip boutiques, cafés, patisseries, restaurants, pubs, wine houses and clubs, as well as bookshops, theatres, cinemas and art galleries.

All providing a rich experience for incentive visitors to the city about which Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “If the earth was a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”

From AUD190 per night

Voted by The Guardian travel people as one of the ten best boutique hotels in Istanbul, the Kybele is a riot of colour, from its sky-blue exterior to its chintzy, lamplit interiors. The best time to negotiate room deals is November to February. “[It’s] one of the most unique, friendly, magical places I’ve ever stayed in,” says one reviewer.

Email: kybelehotel@superonline.com

See video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GppPldHB6o

The Siteseer was a paying guest at the Kybele Hotel, below.

A curtain of rain thrashes down as I alight from a taxi in central Ho Chi Minh City. Dashing into the lobby of the Rex Hotel, I find myself in a marble-walled sanctuary illuminated by recessed lights and glowing aquaria of coloured fish. Many of the women working in the reception area are clad in purple-and-white silk pyjama outfits, adding to the impression that I’ve stepped onto the set of an Indochinese movie.

The venerable Rex Hotel, where I’ve come to talk to managers and check out the facilities, has served as a haven for travellers for decades. It remains one of the best-loved five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, still referred to as Saigon by many of its 8.4 million residents.

The Rex been expanded and renewed several times since it started life as a French garage complex in 1927. From 1959 to 1975 a Vietnamese couple renovated the building and it became the 100-room “Rex Complex” hotel.

Five o’clock follies

During the Vietnam war the American Information Service made its base here. The Rex became a favoured haunt of US officers and was the scene of daily press briefings to foreign correspondents, wryly known by them as the “five o’clock follies”. That’s because, inevitably, the soldiers and hacks would meet in the bar upstairs.

Now the Rex has 286 individually designed guest rooms, a range of function and meeting facilities, a spa, and four in-house restaurants. Located in the prettiest part of Saigon among boulevards and French colonial buildings, it’s within an easy walk of attractions like the vast Ben Thanh undercover bazaar – which expands at nights to become a bustling street market – the main cathedral, opera house, galleries and a variety of interesting museums.

These include the moving Vietnam War Remnants Museum and Reunification Palace, formerly the Norodom Palace. (The palace is the former home of the South Vietnamese President, through whose front gate a tank crashed during the fall of the city to the North Vietnamese army.) The Rex is also 200 metres away from the Saigon river with its teeming restaurants and river cruise dinner boats.

For MICE visitors, one of the most remarkable attributes of the Rex Hotel, as young Director of Sales and Marketing Nick Tran (below) observes, is how cheap it is. For USD150-200 per day you get luxury five-star accommodation, all your food and your meeting package thrown in, he says. “By any standard that’s pretty good, and there’s so much to do for people coming here for events.”

Tunnels are worth visiting

Some 40 kilometres, about an hour’s drive, from the city are the Cu Chi tunnels. These were part of the vast underground network in which the Viet Cong hid during the war, and which served as their base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968. The tunnels make for a great incentive trip, says Nick. You can reach them from the city by road or fast speedboats along the Saigon river.

Within a day post-conference you can play golf, loaf on tropical beaches and tour the Mekong Delta with its rural attractions and floating markets, fish and prawn farms, (catch your own for lunch), bee farms and orchards (pick your own fruit), all within easy reach by road. “It’ll cost you less than a hundred dollars a day, including your transport, tour guide, food and drinks,” says Nick.

Around 65 percent of the Rex Hotel guests are business travellers, and much of the Asian MICE business is currently shifting from Hong Kong and Singapore to Beijing and Saigon, Nick says. Many global companies are getting established and doing business in Vietnam, which is politically stable and welcomes visitors. “The corporate sector is really opening up for us.”

From USD150 a day

That includes five-star accommodation, all meals as well as a full meeting package. Rooms-only via web bookings currently start from $104.

Visit www.rexhotelvietnam.com, call 848 38292185 or email rexhotel@rex.com.vn.

Outdoor jacuzzi at Holiday Inn Resort, Batam

Frank Schoenherr is an old-school hotel manager. His counterparts in some hotels are ivory-tower bureaucrats who are seldom seen. Not so Frank, a German speaker born in Prague.

When I stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Manila while he was general manager there, Frank’s beaming face could be seen in public spaces several times a day. He would pop up unexpectedly in corridors, meeting rooms or bars, and he’d occasionally join guests at the breakfast table for a chat. He led his staff by example. I commended him one day on his attitude to glad-handing, and he agreed wryly that it’s not hard to make people feel welcome. It’s just that many folks in his position tend to forget. Frank hasn’t, which explains why he’s doing so well in his current role as general manager of the Holiday Inn Resort on the Indonesian island of Batam, a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore. This 275-room property, with ten multi-purpose conference and meetings facilities, is targeting events as a market with untapped potential thanks to its nearness to its industrially developed neighbour. “Batam is increasingly seen as a destination for corporate events and incentive destinations, and perfect for inclusion in corporate incentive programs,” explains Frank, whose hotelkeeping career has spanned Austria, Uzbekistan, Slovakia and the Philippines. “We create a home away from home and see guests more as friends than customers.” And he and his colleagues understand the importance of saving clients money. Batam is a short hop from Singapore, so visitors can take advantage of cheaper direct flights to the island state from Australian and other cities. The resort has lush grounds, a vast lagoon pool and a spa, and its meetings specialists provide one-on-one advice.

Frank Schoenherr

Package from AUD68 a day Full-day meeting packages start at SGD 79 (AUD 68, USD 63) per person, and come with two coffee breaks, lunch and complimentary WiFi access in the meeting room. A complimentary return ferry trip from Singapore, and transfers from the ferry terminal to the resort, are included. The offer is valid for stay period until 31 August 2014 with a minimum booking of 50 rooms. See www.ihg.com/holidayinnresorts/hotels/us/en/batam/btaid/hoteldetail. Email reservation@holidayinn-batam.com.

No matter where you’ve been or how often you’ve done it, there’s something about waking up on the morning you’re set to depart on a trip somewhere else, preferably exotic, that quickens the pulse and brightens the outlook. That’s the way it is for me.

The twinge of excitement you feel when you’re about to get on a plane, ship or train to pursue a story is part of the fun of being a writer. I’ve felt it from the time I started my career as a reporter on a daily newspaper in South Africa through my time as a foreign correspondent in Fleet Street (in the old Reuters building) and editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest magazine – for more years than I care to count.

Likewise I’ve enjoyed specialised travel writing to keep myself additionally amused. It’s invariably a labour of love, not mammon, as hard-working travel-scribe colleagues know. And I’ve had a fair amount of experience in the niche meetings and events (MICE) sector, having written on the subject for a variety of publications.

This site, to be complemented by a regular newsletter, is a manifestation of that enthusiasm. It’s aimed at meetings and events planners who seek genuinely useful information about where to go and what to do. That includes advice on destinations and properties, as well as cost, the most important consideration of all.

I hope you’ll dip into these pages and accompany me on the journey, and that you’ll find The Siteseer more-than-occasionally useful.

– Bruce

Dusk falls over the Chao Phraya river, the broad waterway that snakes through Bangkok city and surrounding countryside. Against the darkening horizon, barges and small craft churn the surface of the river into glittering points of light. On the open deck of the teak river boat Mekhala, moored beside a temple, guests are enjoying drinks before sitting down to a Thai meal.

It’s an experience that more and more incentive groups are enjoying as they savour the delights of a Bangkok river cruise. Adventure tour company Asian Oasis operates three converted rice barges on the river, for a one-night, two-day trip that alternates upstream and downstream to and from Bangkok and the former capital of Ayutthaya.

The three boats have eighteen air-conditioned cabins in total, each a marvel of compact design, with en-suites. The overnight stop is at Wat Kai Tia, a Buddhist shrine in a tranquil rural village, where obliging staff serve central Thailand specialty dishes by candlelight on deck. The boats stop at a traditional market as well as an ethnic Mon village; for the rest of the time guests can marvel at life on the teeming waterway on which half of Thailand’s population depends.

The clientele is mostly Australian and European, says Chananya Phataraprasit (pictured), the company’s Executive Director and pioneer of eco-tourism in southeast Asia, and all meals are included. Guests pay for their own booze, or can buy a package that includes drinks.

From $110 per person per day

The cost: from around USD110 per person per day. “That’s good value for money,” says Ms Phataraprasit, with some understatement. “It’s a vibrant, unusual way for many inbound visitors to see Thailand.” As I can attest.

See www.asian-oasis.com or www.mekhala.com
Email: info@asian-oasis.com

It’s not as cheap as it used to be. Back in 1987, after Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni (“Rambo”) Rabuka’s coup, when the flow of tourists dried up, desperate resort operators offered extraordinary deals.

An Australian newspaper colleague of mine took his wife and four kids for a few days’ holiday to one of Fiji’s 333 islands that year for around $1,000, including airfares.

That’s changed of course. Today Fiji doesn’t provide international MICE visitors with the same value for dollars as, say, Southeast Asia. They’ll pay AUD200 and upwards a night at a resort, and up to $2,000 for the swankiest options.

So why do visitor numbers to these islands keep growing? According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, arrivals for January 2014 totalled 47,551, a year-on-year increase of 3%.

The physical attributes are obviously a drawcard: the reefs, white beaches, nodding palms – and the beaming friendly locals. But you get the same just about everywhere in the South Pacific.

From a MICE visitor’s perspective it all depends how you define value, according to David Pearson, Director of Business Development at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa (left), a five-star holiday and conference complex at Natadola Bay on the main island of Viti Levu.

A major attraction in a time-poor era is that Fiji is only four hours flying time from the Australian east coast and two-and-a-half from Auckland. “It takes eight to nine hours to fly to Southeast Asia,” says David. “If you’re paying executives you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for event.”

Moreover you don’t have to travel long and far within the small country to have wonderful outer-island incentive experiences, and the genuine warmth of the Fijians makes a difference, over and beyond other destinations in the South Pacific, asserts David – himself a cheerful presence at the resort. (Though still in his late twenties, he has nine years’ experience in the InterContinental Hotels Group in Australia).

The F&B offering in Fiji has improved tenfold in the past five years, he adds. It was never renowned for being a culinary destination, but that’s changing too, in the quality of the produce, sourced locally, and in the recipes and food offerings gleaned from IHG properties round the world.

For budget-conscious MICE visitors, the January to March rainy season may be the best time to visit the 271-room InterContinental Fiji, with rates generally more competitive, starting from AUD 250 a day per person for accommodation depending on the type of rooms you book, says David. The service and facilities are outstanding, set in beautifully designed infrastructure and grounds, and IHG works hard to keep it that way. “The engineering team works continually to maintain the rooms and grounds in pristine quality,” he says. “The resort’s five years old and it retains a freshness, as you can see.”

“And even in the wet season rain typically comes in the afternoons, then clears, and the water temperature and quality of diving and fishing’s incredible all year round.”

The resort is 45 minutes from Nadi airport and set along one of the best beaches on the main island; its pillarless ballroom can handle up to 600 delegates. Plus there’s a championship golf course on site, with the Pacific as a backdrop on 15 of the 18 holes. An airy wedding chapel fronts a green lawn and the Pacific. A global IT company held a five-day inaugural incentive for its Asia Pacific sales team of 600 here recently, taking occupancy of the whole complex.

Tariffs notwithstanding, Fiji seems set to grow in importance as a meetings and incentive venue. Generous development incentives like depreciation allowances, tax rebates and easy repatriation of capital make it attractive for investors. (Though less attractive are the incentives for the local hotel staff, most of whom only get FJD4-5 an hour). And things are happening, development-wise. A $3.5 million investment by Sheraton, for instance, has resulted in the opening, just recently, of a convention centre with the capacity to hold about 1,200.

From AUD250 a night upwards

Rates for group bookings at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa start from AUD250 per day, and a recent summer special on the property’s website offered 30% off normal retail rates.

The Siteseer was a paying guest at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa.

David Pearson: "you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for event."

David Pearson: “you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for an event.”