Stylish, transformed offering is budget-beating

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The first striking feature visitors note when entering the lobby of the ibis Styles hotel at Bali Kuta Circle is a startling angular swimming pool, which seems to be suspended in air. Closer examination shows that it is.

Guests can walk under the pool, supported by pillars, and through glass windows set into the bottom, and swimmers can peer down to the floor below. Flanked by a cute bar and small but well-equipped gym, the pool is set in a quadrangle between white-painted and balconied hotel rooms rising several floors above the waterline.

Accor’s ibis Styles group of 141 hotels, comprising the chain formerly known as All Seasons (rebranded in 2012), gives the lie to the old Ibis image of a basic hostelry with plastic shower cubicle, cell-like room and vending machines dispensing food and drinks. This is a transformed offering.

The corporate undertaking is to ensure each ibis Styles establishment has a different design and offers a resort or boutique-style experience.

Despite its not-too-snappy name of ibis Styles Bali Kuta Circle, this property, one of three “Styles”-branded hotels on the Indonesian holiday isle, has a bright, breezy, welcoming feel. It’s well-maintained and its public areas, like the room interiors, are painted in vivid colours. That, along with the sharp, colourful uniforms of the staff help impart a young, go-getter branding.

The hotel is in a busy business area adjacent to a mall, ten minutes from the airport and a brief, two-kilometre cab hop to the restaurants and buzz of Kuta Beach, Legian and Seminyak. It has a restaurant, “internet corner” and shuttle service.

The 190 rooms have good airconditioning, important in Bali, and include 32-square-metre loft duplexes designed to accommodate up to four. All rooms have king-size beds, safe deposit boxes, mini bars, hairdryers and free wifi internet access. Family rooms, also 32 squares, can accommodate the same number.

Online room rates start at around AUD 50, and include a full breakfast. Meeting packages start at around AUD 24 for a half day, including lunch, AUD 30 per person for a full day, or AUD 43 for full-board meetings, including two coffee breaks, lunch and dinner. Also thrown in are welcome drinks, free internet and discounts of up to 20% in the on-site spa.

There are two meeting rooms of 101 square metres and 83 square metres, able to accommodate up to 100 and 80 respectively in a theatre configuration. They have the AV, digital, wifi and other bells and whistles that come standard with vastly higher-priced facilities in other properties.

Interestingly, the group has embraced green principles, with flow regulators on taps, recycling of food waste for compost or energy, promoting of local food in the restaurant and in-room recycling. It’s also involved in a program to protect local children.

More info: Email H8118-RE1@accor.com

Or visit

http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-8118-ibis-styles-bali-kuta-circle/index.shtml

Arriving at 11pm at the Hotel Santika Siligita in Bali, tired after a long flight, the immediate signs aren’t too appealing: a driveway with security guard off a busy thoroughfare in Nusa Dua, and a tiled lobby mostly deserted. At reception, a woman is complaining loudly to a staff member that a driver had tried to rip her off. Obligingly he orders her another cab.

It’s when I wake next morning and wander down to breakfast that I’m reminded again how pleasant it is to visit southeast Asia, especially Bali.

A large, high-ceilinged breakfast terrace served by smiling staff in traditional Balinese gear looks out over an enormous blue swimming pool surrounded by walled tropical gardens of lawns, frangipani trees and shrubbery. On one side, a sign emblazoned with “Uluwatu Spa” beckons. I could relax here.

Breakfast is a feast with a bewildering choice, from fresh papaya and other local fruits to an omelette station and western fare, with eclectic Asian choices including braised or fried chilli fish, curried chicken, nasi goreng, stuffed cabbage, salads, pastries and much else.

The three-star Hotel Santika Siligita is set near the centre of Nusa Dua, a MICE hub in Bali. It’s 30 minutes’ drive from the airport and about five minutes by free shuttle bus to good beaches and shopping. It has 153 rooms with high-speed wifi connection – something that some higher-priced chains, like Hilton, still, incredibly, don’t offer non-member guests – tea- and coffee-making facilities, safe deposit box, LCD TV and cable channels.

The hotel itself includes six well-equipped meeting rooms, and full banquet facilities are available for larger gatherings and special events.

“We’re part of a strong local company that has over forty very reasonably priced hotels throughout Indonesia,“ says Ni Wayan Yoni (pictured, above), Assistant Sales Manager for the Hotel Santika Siligita Nusa Dua.

“We recently hosted a five-day conference for a business group of 70 people here very successfully, and we can easily accommodate up to 140 people theatre-style.”

The half-day rate including lunches is USD 23, for a full day it’s USD 35, and for full board that includes lunch and dinner it’s USD 40. And even these rates are subject to negotiation, says Wayan Yoni. The online room rate starts from USD 29 a night, including breakfast, which, notwithstanding the value-for-money reputation of many Asian three-star hotels, is reasonable indeed.

Meetings clients are roughly split between local and international groups, with a significant number of MICE visitors from Singapore, Korea, China, Germany and, to a lesser extent, Australia, she says.

The Santika hotel group includes two-star Amaris properties, three-star Santika branded hotels and Santika Premier hotels which incorporate a collection of four-star properties. The Royal Collection is a brand of boutique Villa properties under the Samaya and Kayana brands.

More info: sales@siligitabali.santika.com, and at

http://www.santika.com/indonesia/bali/hotel-santika-siligita-nusa-dua-bali/

Events organisers and suppliers to the MICE sector who haven’t heeded China’s latest outbound tourism numbers or what its travellers ask for most commonly in hotels (free wifi and kettles) could miss out on revenue in a major way.

That’s the key message, again, in Hotels.com’s latest Chinese International Travel Monitor, published last month. The fifth annual survey of its kind shows that despite a slowdown in the growth of Chinese overseas travel, 92% of travellers from the country plan to increase or maintain spending, and one-third plan to spend more on travel in the coming year.

A staggering 120 million Chinese travelled overseas in 2015, up from 117 million in 2014, the year when the milestone of 100 million was first passed. There were over a million (1,023,600) to Australia alone – up 22 percent on the previous year. And down under remains at the top of the Chinese traveller wish list for the third year in a row as the most desired destination to visit in the next 12 months.

A rough measure of the still-untapped potential of this market could be that only 5% of the 1.4 billion people in China hold passports, yet it’s already the top global spender on travel. The expenditure is expected to equal Finland’s GDP and exceed the size of the Greek economy in five years.

Chinese millennials – 18 to 35-year-olds – spend over a quarter of their income on travel. Two-thirds of travellers from China consider travel an essential part of life, and are prepared to spend nearly a quarter of their income on it.

Kettles and slippers

While the top requests in hotels by Chinese travelers were for free wi-fi and kettles in their rooms, requests numbers three and four were Chinese breakfast and slippers. However, one-size-fits-all perceptions of the Chinese as group tour travellers wanting only Chinese breakfasts and Mandarin translators are outdated, according to Abhiram Chowdry, Vice President and Managing Director APAC for Hotels.com.

“Our research shows that the industry needs to move decisively to develop new products and marketing strategies for the far more sophisticated Chinese travellers of today,” he says.

“An analysis of our research data has revealed that Chinese travellers fall into one of five travel personas [which] open the way for targeted marketing to attract these segments and cater to their specific needs.”

Read the report here.

More and more companies and government agencies seek to meet offsite in well-serviced, smaller venues that offer competitive prices and interesting localities these days, says Kurt Wehinger (below), Area General Manager Oceania for Pan Pacific Hotels Group.

PARKROYAL Darling Harbour – one of 34 hotels in the group owned or managed by Pan Pacific Hotels Group across Oceania, Asia, North America and Europe – is that kind of venue. And this may be one reason it has been running at almost a hundred percent occupancy during the southern winter, says Kurt.

Moreover the 340 fresh, classy guest rooms and seven meeting facilities at PARKROYAL Darling Harbour, set on the western side of the CBD opposite the new Sydney ICC, are reasonably priced compared with many other hotels in Sydney.

“Price and location are definitely factors when you look at our meetings offer,” says Kurt, a thirty-year industry veteran who’s worked in South Africa, Singapore and China.

“We stand up well against some of the big players in Sydney, and we put our money where our mouth is because we offer a great product that is reasonably priced. We’re relatively small [about 400 square metres of meeting space] and don’t have huge ballrooms but frankly we have what companies are looking for.”

Chatting over coffee in the hotel’s executive lounge, Kurt says he’s observed a distinct smaller-is-better trend across the MICE sector in recent times, which has translated into strong repeat business for the hotel, especially for groups of around 50.

“You won’t find many big companies these days that don’t have their own sizeable meeting rooms in house, so with conference calls and AV equipment available you don’t have to travel as much as before or with so many delegates to have a meaningful meeting.

“And we have the technology that allows us to facilitate remote participation for those who want it. Anyone in the industry seeking MICE business these days who does not have the latest tech equipment is likely to lose out.”

While all big hotels talk about good service, the PARKROYAL Darling Harbour’s relatively modest size helps staff deliver a good personal experience, and they focus on helping clients discover the immediate neighbourhood as part of the deal.

“One of our mottoes is to create experiences,” explains Kurt, “so when you come here for an event we can show clients places in the vicinity they won’t find on a tourism map – great bars with no names, the best coffee alleyways, local designer boutiques and similar best-kept secrets to exploring Sydney like a local.”

Clients are increasingly making use of this service, which coincides with what Kurt sees as a new energy in the harbourside city. “There’s something special happening in Sydney right now. There’s an energy, I can feel it, that it’s never had before. Everywhere there’s new infrastructure and new activity.”

An added attraction is his view that Sydney has relatively low rates for meetings and hotel accommodation, compared with many other places like Singapore, London or Hong Kong. “It’s really not that expensive,” he says.

On one hand that’s obviously good news; on the other there’s a problem in relation to where the growing number of future visitors will be accommodated. “If you have 7,000 people coming in for a medical conference, where will they stay? Our group is eager to grow to help meet the demand, while being mindful we don’t want to set prices too high.”

To that end its sister hotel, the 196-room PARKROYAL Parramatta is due to open 90 new rooms in August 2016 following a $25 million-extension. It will be the only hotel with club-lounge facilities in Western Sydney.

From AUD 195

Online room rates start from AUD 195, and a Sunday and Monday day-delegate offer is currently available at AUD 75 per person. This includes free wifi for the meeting, two valet parking spots for the duration of the event, full day catering with a sit-down buffet lunch, room hire, stationery and an onsite paging system linking organisers directly to their conference concierge. (Half day delegate packages are also available.)

The hotel has views of the Darling Harbour precinct and is a short walk from Chinatown, Darling Park, Pitt Street Mall and the King Street Wharf.

More information, click here.

Email events.prsyd@parkroyalhotels.com

It was after midnight when I checked into the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. As I usually do when I arrive in a hotel room, I set up my laptop. And as I usually do, I used a piece of paper to serve as a mouse pad.

Next morning when I’d returned to my room after breakfast, I discovered that a staff member had placed a real mouse pad on the desk, unasked. Later, in the elevator, I bumped into another obliging employee who introduced himself as F&B Director Ritesh Choudhary. I sought a booking at one of the hotel’s restaurants that evening, I told him. He insisted on personally showing me to The Chambers, a club-like eatery that overlooks Mumbai’s waterfront and The Gateway of India, a famous British colonial monument.

It was an auspicious start to my visit to the Taj Mahal Palace, the venerable flagship of the Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces group. Since its opening in 1903, the “Palace” has hosted conferences for representatives of virtually every one of the top 300 companies in the world, according to Nisha Dhage (main picture), Associate Director of Public Relations.

“It’s geared to MICE business and always has been,” says Nisha. “From the day we opened we’ve had the ballroom and crystal room, which are still important venues. Over the past hundred years we’ve added another eight venues and we’re in the process of adding one more.”

Big social events, product launches, black-tie evenings and weddings are a key part of the hotel’s business today – and what its operators perceive to be its future, she adds. “The Taj Bombay’s seen it all. We were the first hotel to provide outdoor catering in India, and today we’re equipped to handle everything from intimate events like a five-person sit-down dinner to a banquet for five hundred.”

Plus the Taj operates four other hotels in the city, so if it can’t cater for everyone, it has sister hotels from which it can pull chefs and staff, and expand its capabilities. Plus, because it has so many rooms, guests can attend, say, a very large banquet and stay overnight on site as well.

With 550 rooms and suites, the Taj Palace has two accommodation wings – the Tower, which was built in the ‘70s as a complement to the original “Palace,” which was the brainchild of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the Tata industrial conglomerate. (According to one anecdote, he decided to open the hotel after he’d been refused entry at another Bombay hotel because he wasn’t a European).

The Palace’s seventy-metre-high dome was the first clear marker of Bombay Harbour that could be seen from the sea, and it still serves as a navigational aid. When it opened, the hotel claimed a series of firsts: American fans, German elevators, Turkish baths and English butlers. It was the first building in Bombay to be lit by electricity and had the city’s first licensed bar.

For landlubbers it also enjoys a good strategic location in Mumbai’s main commercial hub. An hour from the airport, it’s close to the financial district, parliament, stadium, offices and shopping districts.

The variety of things to do means it can offer events organisers a swag of opportunities for team-building. “In fact we’re about to start offering a broader variety of team-building activities for groups,” explains Nisha Dhage. “One of these is sailing on the Arabian Sea right outside our front gate, which is something we can arrange from October onwards – the non-monsoon months.”

Events staff can arrange city tours on bicycles and an educational Mumbai-by-dawn excursion which starts at 5am and takes in such sights as the flower and fish markets. “We’re in the art district of Mumbai which also sets the scene for great tours,” adds Nisha. “We have the National Gallery of Modern Art and at least 15 other galleries in this area, plus the Taj’s own gallery which just reopened. Many great Indian painters started their careers here from the 1940s onwards.”

When to get the best deals

The monsoon months, June to September, are the best time to have an event at the Taj Palace, price-wise. From mid-September occupancies tend to rise, says Nisha. “That means the combination of the room and banquet venue, and of course if you’re planning a banquet here and take a room as well you get a better deal, as a package.”

Rates depend on the kind of conference PCOs are seeking. The hotel often recommends they keep the bed-and-breakfast element separate from the conference deal, because it allows for more versatility in what you can add into the package. “Being a hundred-year-old hotel, while we’ve upgraded our services, there may be things you add in for vendors who bring in equipment that may not be available here, for example.”

On average, for organisers who take say fifty rooms and up, the bed and breakfast-plus-taxes rate during the monsoon months would be in the INR 9,500 to INR 10,000 range, says Nisha. And a lunch and dinner buffet together would be around INR 7,000 plus taxes. That means all-up you’d be looking at INR 15,000 (USD 225) to INR 18,000 (USD 270) per person, based on a stay in the tower section which is aimed more at business travellers.

Anyone fortunate enough to stay here can expect uniformly brilliant service. When I asked housekeeping to collect some laundry, it was returned in about an hour, with shirts beautifully cleaned and pressed and individually wrapped. And when I checked out very early in the morning, staff at one of the restaurants insisted on arranging a packed breakfast for me to eat in the cab.

“I think it might be part of our DNA somewhere, in everything we do, that guest is God,” says Nisha Dhage with a smile. “It’s part of the Taj way of doing things.”

The Taj group has over 100 hotels in 62 locations.

More information:

Call +91 22 66011825

Email reservations@tajhotels.com

I was strolling the narrow streets of Coron Town, Philippines, when a late-afternoon thunderstorm blew in from the sea. The tropical deluge forced me to run up a set of ramshackle stairs off the main square, to take shelter in a tiny wooden-framed restaurant. It proved to be an excellent decision.

From my first-floor seat on the covered balcony, I watched motorised tricycles scud by through the downpour, and ordered an ice-cold San Miguel Light, one of the country’s most popular brews, followed by another. Then came fried calamari along with a delicious green chicken and coconut curry. When the rain stopped and the bill eventually arrived, I forked out the equivalent of AUD 8 for my meal and all the drinks. “Come again tomorrow,” said the restaurateur, Malou, with a gap-toothed smile.

The affability of the people and value for money are among the most notable attributes of this place, a coastal settlement flanked by the green karst mountains of Busuanga Island north of the larger isle, Palawan.

With a scattering of hotels and island resorts, relatively few tourists and pristine beaches and coral atolls providing some of the best diving and boating opportunities in the Philippines, undeveloped Coron Town and the surrounding Calamian archipelago may represent some of the great incentive trip surprises of the Western Pacific.

That may change of course, with Palawan having been named best island in the world by Conde Nast Traveler fairly recently. Meanwhile bargains for incentive groups – and brilliant experiences – await those prepared to hop on one of the daily 50-minute flights to Busuanga from Manila. (Starting from about AUD 150 for each leg on local airline Skyjet, for example. Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines also fly this route).

An essential part of a visitor’s itinerary should be an island-hopping day trip from Coron Town to nearby beaches, inlets and reefs. The guided tours invariably take place via native, double-outrigger bangka boats, and start from the wharf on the town foreshore. I paid roughly AUD 35, which included the tour, lunch and refreshments.

Tours typically include visits to seven or eight spots, diving and snorkelling onto the remains of a merchant ship in shallow water – the area is also renowned for WW2 wreck diving – lunch on an icing-sugar beach and a climb up, and down, to Kayangan Lake, a body of clear blue water set in a “hole” of its own among steep, heavily wooded hills and cliffs.

Here’s a typical online comment about one of the island resorts in the area: “It’s like you died and woke up in beach heaven . . . the sand is talc and the water is crystal clear. . .”

While isolated luxury resorts in this region, like Huma Island (www.humaisland.com) are brilliant incentive destinations in their own right, one hotel, the 80-room Westown, pictured above, stands out as a meetings destination close to restaurants and shops in Coron Town.

With four-star-standard rooms with great views, three swimming pools, a spa, bars and restaurant, the Westown is a five-minute trike ride from the town centre. It has three main meeting venues and rates are extraordinarily low. For example one package that includes use of a venue for 20 people for three hours, waiter service, sound system equipment and a plated three-course lunch starts at PHP 400 (about AUD 12) per person. Rates for the well-air-conditioned, spacious rooms start at around AUD 115 per night.

Busuanga has great venues and outdoor experiences, representing fantastic value – as do so many of the 7,107 islands of the Philippines, where almost everyone speaks English and domestic carriers serve dozens of routes. More info:

coronwestownresort@yahoo.com.ph

www.coronwestownresort.com

www.tourismphilippines.com.au

The Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts group shares its name with the mythical, isolated Himalayan utopia described in 1933 by British novelist James Hilton, in which residents are always relaxed and happy. In many ways it’s an appropriate comparison.

That’s because even the most experienced of travellers surely can’t help but be uplifted by the jaw-dropping views from the rooms of Shangri-La hotel in Sydney. They take in the poetic lines of the old steel bridge, the teeming harbour traffic and ferries, the sails of the Opera House, juxtaposed with the clean lines of skyscrapers and water that glitters, in the words of the great Australian writer Clive James, like crushed diamonds. This is Sydney at its best.

Success in the incentive and event market hinges on the ability to deliver exceptional service, observes Paul McMurray, Director of Sales and Marketing at the Shangri-La hotel, Sydney.

Every operator will say this of course, but this hotel has a highly experienced on-site events team led by a respected professional, and the cheerfulness of obliging employees is evident from the moment you step into the marble-floored lobby.

Moreover the incentive and events market is acutely focused on destination these days, says Paul McMurray, which is one reason the hotel enjoys a booming MICE business.

Why Sydney?

“Sydney is a “trip of a lifetime” destination”, explains Paul, “that can reward and inspire high achievers.”

Aside from the beauty of the harbour, it has over a hundred great beaches, outstanding restaurants, a thriving arts scene, showcases just about every sporting code under the sun and has a pretty efficient public transport system.

“It’s becoming increasingly apparent to us that companies are moving away from the traditional and towards the special,” Paul says. “This is where Sydney truly shines – in cultural experiences that add a wow factor to incentive or event programs.

That could be, for example, climbing the bridge together, sunset sailing while harbour island hopping, enjoying views of the city from a helicopter and so on.”

The hotel has a good track record with boutique, high-end groups as well as larger city-wide programs which has resulted in good relationships with decision makers who organise and travel with groups, he adds.

These groups can choose from 18 flexible spaces for groups of ten to 400 – including a covered outdoor venue – and a Grand Ballroom that can seat 750 theatre style and 800 for stand up cocktail. The ballroom’s attributes include a complete lighting, sound and visual system that can be controlled with a wireless iPad, adjustable LED spotlights for table pin-spotting, four skylights with customisable colour settings at the touch of a button, and six motorised projection screens.

As The Siteseer can attest, the hotel offers fine attention to detail in its 565 rooms and suites, which have generous windows and where the furnishings reflect the colours of the harbour. There’s a swish spa, which groups can book exclusively, and a range of dining options including Altitude, a signature restaurant with views of the city on floor 36.

Though it’s a primarily a western hotel, a beautiful Asian influence is evident everywhere: in the service, food and décor – what one staff member describes as “a slice of Asia in Australia”.

“Our repeat business is a testament to our ability to meet clients’ needs,” says Paul McMurray. (Indeed with the power of social media these days, the hotel’s operators recognise that having clients as ambassadors is critical. Moreover the Sydney hotel gets mostly fulsome reviews on TripAdvisor and elsewhere).

Another advantage of the hotel is its relatively discreet location, a bit removed from the main part of the CBD, yet still only a few minutes’ walk from it and the main ferry terminal, Circular Quay, and the old precinct of The Rocks, established shortly after the founding of the New South Wales colony in 1788.

New loyalty program

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts recently created other incentives for people meeting at its properties, launching “The Events Collection and Golden Circle Event Planner Rewards loyalty program”. This provides meeting and travel professionals and members of Golden Circle – the frequent guest scheme – with the ability to earn “elite” status and earn and redeem points for meetings and events throughout the group’s portfolio.

The Events Collection offering is valid for meetings and events booked for groups taking 25 or more paid guest rooms for at least one night and with a minimum function room spend. In addition to other enticements, groups can get a 10% future event credit.

Special rates on specific dates

Online rates starts from around AUD 260 per night. Organisers can get special rates for groups of 10 or more rooms for meetings or events on specific dates. And if a group or conference books a Sunday night, the hotel is usually able to offer savings. “This is particularly true in the winter months, which is a wonderful time to experience the sights and sounds of Sydney,” says Paul McMurray.

Through the picture window in your rail carriage, the red plains of Central Australia flow past as the sun sets over the outback. Soon you’re enjoying aperitifs with your work colleagues and preparing for dinner in an elegant lounge and dining car.

Your three-course meal includes kangaroo steaks, saltwater barramundi and a rich Australian shiraz. Later, when you retire to your private cabin, a marvel of comfort and compaction, looking forward to an exciting few days of exploration ahead, you fall asleep easily to the rattle and sway of the train.

This scenario is an easily accessible experience down under on The Ghan, one of the three legendary trains operated by the Great Southern Rail company. It owns The Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin), Overland (Melbourne-Adelaide) and Indian Pacific (Sydney-Adelaide-Perth) rail journeys. The latter is reputed to be the only transcontinental train linking two oceans in the world.

In particular The Ghan, which takes its name from 19th Century Afghan camel drivers who helped explore the interior, is an increasingly popular venue for incentive organisers, according to Damien Wolff, Business Development Manager – Groups and Niche for Great Southern Rail.

The train traverses the continent from Adelaide to Darwin via Alice Springs on a three-day, two-night journey,and Great Southern Rail works with Australia’s Northern Territory Convention Bureau to develop special rail-and-land itineraries for incentive groups travelling the route.

The offers are in respect of the train’s “Platinum” offer, the highest level of service aboard which includes a private cabin with double or twin bedding, en-suite bathroom, in-room breakfast if you want it, all meals and beverages as well as a variety of off-train excursions centred mostly around Katherine and Alice Springs.

The Platinum club lounge (pictured) can be arranged as an exclusive space when all the Platinum cabins are booked by a group, says Damien. There’s a discrete lounge area for meetings as well as a flexible dining room.

“The Ghan has scheduled stops that include Katherine, where you can take a cruise along Nitmiluk Gorge or a helicopter flight, and Alice Springs where guests can take a walking tour of Simpsons Gap, visit the fantastic Alice Springs desert park or a tour on camels,” Damien says.

A typical itinerary put together by the NT Convention Bureau and incorporating a ride on The Ghan can look something like this:

DAY ONE

Arrive at Alice Springs. Visit a local gallery and lunch with Indigenous artists. Take a bike ride, meet local wildlife at the Alice Springs desert park or play eighteen holes on a desert course. Dinner is a barbecue at the foot of the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges. Entertainment includes a cattleman’s demonstration and line-dancing.

DAY TWO

Early hot-air balloon flight followed by champagne breakfast. Visit Simpsons Gap for lunch created by an Indigenous chef, followed by a guided walk through the National Park. Dine and be entertained at the Cultural Precinct theatre in the evening.

DAY THREE

Fly to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and check into an eco-sensitive resort. Options include a Harley Davidson ride around Uluru or participation in a dot-painting workshop. A ride on desert camels sets the scene for a dinner finale under the stars.

DAY FOUR

Take a cultural guided walk around Uluru. Enjoy some poolside time or get off the beaten track with an offroad four-wheel drive experience. (Trips can include a night at Kings Canyon with a degustation dinner under the stars and a helicopter ride.)

DAY FIVE

Board The Ghan. Settle in and take in the views of the outback with a glass of Australian wine in hand. Liaise with colleagues.

DAY SIX

In the morning explore the Nitmiluk Gorge in Katherine. Cruise along ancient waterways be inspired by Aboriginal art and dreamtime stories. Enjoy restaurant-quality lunch back on board before arriving in Darwin that evening.

Platinum from AUD $2,549

In the high season from April to November, Ghan “Platinum” fares per person are advertised on its website as AUD 2,549 from Adelaide to Alice Springs or vice versa, or from Alice Springs to Darwin or vice versa. (Low season: AUD 2,289). High season Platinum fares from Adelaide to Darwin or vice versa are AUD 3,699 per person.

Platinum cabins are almost twice the size of the train’s Gold Twin arrangements and by day can be configured as a private lounge with lounge seating, a table and two ottomans. By night the lounges convert to double or twin beds. Vegetarian, kids’ and special meals are available when making bookings. The Platinum Service fare includes breakfasts, two-course lunches and three-course dinners.

See more at www.greatsouthernrail.com.au.

Or contact Damien Wolff at Damien.wolff@gsr.com.au.

Inhabitants of Wollongong, the mid-sized coastal city 80 kilometres south of Sydney, talk proudly about their town as New South Wales’s best-kept secret. I should know, I lived there for a year.

On my return to the city for the first time in a decade recently, I took a walk along the broad, clean stretch of sand in front of the Novotel Wollongong Northbeach Hotel, flanked on either side by pines and sparkling water, and was reminded that the folks who live there have a point.

There wasn’t much traffic on nearby roads and the city has a kind of airy, leafy spaciousness, with the flats near the foreshore – along what’s colloquially known as Wollongong’s “blue mile” – invariably low-rise and looking new. It was a warm autumn afternoon, but there were only a handful of strollers on the beach and swimmers in the water. A few lounged at a beachfront café, taking it easy.

Not surprisingly, the operators of the four-and-a-half-star Novotel Wollongong Northbeach, which has been in the Accor family for over 20 years, see their location as a great asset and make good use of it. Touted as the only beachfront hotel in the city, it arranges events and weddings in 14 multi-function rooms and sprawling exhibition space, many of which have views of the sea. All the 204 guestrooms either have direct or oblique ocean views. The hotel has begun a refurbishment of the rooms, which is being completed in stages.

Its main rooftop deck, looking northwards over the beach, has a retractable roof, so it can be used for dinners, networking functions and weddings and parties in any weather, while one of its main eateries, Pepe’s, for example, is a great spot for guests to dine, relax and enjoy splendid water views.

“The beach in front of the hotel is patrolled 365 days a year which is another bonus,” says Associate Director of Sales Rachael Lihou (pictured above). “It also lends itself well to team-building activities, which our events staff can support by recommending local companies to assist clients – like yoga or tai chi on the beach, paddle-boarding or other team sports.”

There’s much else to do in Wollongong and surrounds as well, Rachael points out, from adventure sports like sky-diving, winery tours and golf at beautiful courses nearby.

“One of the key points I make when organisers are considering Wollongong and our destination is that it’s all easily accessible from Sydney, just an hour’s drive from Sydney airport,” she says. “The team at Novotel Wollongong Northbeach are flexible and always willing to go the extra mile to make the experience memorable.”

The hotel can host a variety of events or conferences up to 600 delegates in its ballroom, and guests can take advantage of spacious pre-function areas and outdoor terraces. It has a designated conferencing level with meetings and events spaces located on one floor, making it easy for delegates to move between sessions and breakouts.

“The majority of our conference clients are from Sydney; however we do have conferences that attract international delegates,” says Rachael. “For example we’ve just finished hosting an event for the Australian Coal Preparation Society, with around 200 delegates. We’re aware that events held at the hotel don’t just assist our property, but other companies in the region and we work very closely with all local businesses.”

Complete meeting package from AUD 75

Novotel Wollongong Northbeach’s complete meeting packages start from $75 per person for a full day. “But we’re flexible,” says Rachael, “and packages can be tailored to meet clients’ requirements.”

To find out more, check out the property’s meetings site here.

Or email H1654-sb3@accor.com.

If you line up 20 boxes that Bangkok ticks that places like Singapore, KL and Sydney don’t, it wins on price, food, service, luxury and setting, says this hotelier. And the City of Angels has one other, matchless attribute.

“If you’re bringing eighty or a hundred people to a conference and you tell them it’s in Bangkok or Thailand, they’ll be excited,” says Paul Counihan, Cluster Director of Sales and Marketing for the Anantara Riverside Bangkok Resort and Spa.

“On the other hand if you say it’s in Bhutan or KL, they might decide to give it a miss. That’s because Thailand has an allure that makes it a wonderful choice for MICE decision-makers.”

Paul Counihan (pictured) should know. The engaging, effervescent 36-year-old is a career hotelier who admits to having started pulling pints when he was 14 years old in his native Ireland.

He’s lived and worked in Bangkok for the past nine years, and in his current post has helped make the Anantara Riverside Bangkok Resort – a sprawling, leafy resort on the banks of the Chao Phraya River – a five-star property that challenges brands like Peninsula and Shangri-la for luxury and service.

Thanks in part to Bangkok’s growing international appeal, the Anantara Riverside is attracting unprecedented levels of business and enquiries, Paul says. “The number of events we’ve hosted recently or that we have booked in is extraordinary.”

Recently a global pharmaceutical company had their annual conference at the hotel. It’s also hosted a German car manufacturer’s Asia-Pacific team, an airline’s internal meeting and launch, and a clean energy organisation among others.

Another key reason for his property’s – and Thailand’s – success as a MICE destination is price, Paul observes. The feedback he and colleagues are getting from clients in Australia, Singapore and elsewhere is that with the current economic and political uncertainty in the world, organisers are seeking to cut costs, while wanting to reward their people with great incentives at the same time.

‘Cheap as chips’

Room rates at Anantara Riverside Bangkok including all taxes, services and gourmet breakfast served on the hotel’s serene riverside terrace start at 5,000 Thai baht (about USD 140). Day conference rates range from USD 50 per person and delegates can upgrade up to USD 100 per person per day if they want to tailor-make the experience with, for example, additional servies like in-room baristas.

“In a city like Sydney you’d be paying $450 per night at a minimum to get into a place anything like this, with all additions on top of that,” says Paul. “We do fantastic private gala dinners for clients with over 20 live stations and 30 chefs serving, for around USD 50 per head; that’s cheap as chips.

“I’ve been in Bangkok for almost ten years and I want to cry sometimes at the prices I confirm for our premises, because it’s such good value! If I go to a meeting in Singapore and pay three times in a four-star hotel that I’m paying for a five-star suite on the river at Anantara, I’m reminded again that Bangkok is a winner.”

This may all help explain why the Anantara Riverside, a pleasant shuttleboat jaunt away from the centre of Bangkok, is seeing growth in events business that would normally have gone to Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and other such destinations.

“We’re seeing more quoting up against other international cities than ever before,” Paul says.

The hotel is the flagship of the Anantara brand (owned by the Minor International group), which now operates 35 resorts in 11 countries.

With 408 bedrooms, which recently benefited from a USD $20 million upgrade, it’s set on 11 acres with 1,200 trees and 283 plant varieties growing on site. From the walkways of the lavish gardens and rooms, the Chao Phraya River and its teeming boat traffic are invariably visible.

The 12 meeting venues, spanning more than 3,000 square metres, all have natural light and include a grand ballroom that can comfortably seat 600 and which recently also underwent a million-dollar upgrade.

Avani opening next door

These spaces will be complemented by the addition of Avani Riverside, a new hotel, events and shopping precinct (opening scheduled April 2016) located adjacent to Anantara Riverside Bangkok. The $90 million Avani complex has 26 storeys, and when entirely complete will have 68 bars, restaurants and shops, and meeting facilities of 4,500 square metres (the new ballroom is pictured below). Each of the 248 Avani guest rooms and suites will have uninterrupted river and city views, Paul says.

Avani hotels, also owned by the Minor group, are what Paul describes as lifestyle, contemporary and international-style properties while Anantara represents more of a retreat and an experience – “luxury, relaxation and cultural experience of the location”. Avani is the first purpose-built hotel that Minor’s created worldwide.

“Meanwhile we’re developing an Avani in Perth, on Australia’s Gold Coast, and we’ve got 12 in Africa, having taken over half the Sun hotel group last year.”

Paul recognises that, now more than ever in the MICE market, corporate people are making big budgetary decisions when opting where to put their key people together for four or five days for an event. “Corporations see it as an opportunity to get two, a hundred or a thousand people in a room because that helps drive their business for the next year and beyond.

“We take the product we offer seriously, to create the right environment in which to conduct business and reward people, entertaining delegates and giving them a fantastic experience.”

For example at Anantara Riverside Bangkok the outdoor terrace has its own purpose-built stage and a light show, and executives can arrange to have private breakfasts on the river for up to 80 colleagues, he adds. Helping to ensure the success of tailor-made events are 630 staff. “It’s their dedication and service, which comes from the heart, that defines their work and our reputation. Their welcome is authentic and it’s what international guests expect.”

bangkokriverside@anantara.com