Singapore among Top Three Cities in the World for Meetings

Singapore is now ranked among the world’s top three cities for meetings, based on the Union of International Associations’ (UIA) latest rankings. In the UIA’s International Meetings Statistics 2006 report, Singapore moved up one place from 2005 to third position in the Top International Meeting City category, placing it among the top three for the first time, and alongside well-established European cities that host international meetings, namely Paris (ranked 1st) and Vienna (2nd).

At the same time, Singapore topped the rankings in Asia, as Asia’s top country and city for meetings. Singapore surged from fourth to first position, as Asia’s Top Country for Meetings, while maintaining its standing as Asia’s Top City for Meetings, a position it has held for the past 23 years.

The strong showing by Singapore serves as a resounding endorsement of its strengths and continued draw as a business destination.

Last year saw Singapore hosting 298 meetings that met UIA’s qualifying criteria, representing a significant 62% growth over 2005. Most notable among these were the 2006 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in September. An important milestone in Singapore’s calendar of events, the 2006 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank saw 16,000 foreign delegates converge in Singapore to attend various meetings and business events.

Singapore has shown an impressive growth in the number of meetings, which more than doubled in the past five years, even as the number of meetings held in Asia dipped by 2% over the same period. This has effectively doubled Singapore’s share of the Asian market, resulting in it accounting for 22% of all meetings held in Asia in 2006.

Singapore’s sterling results over the past five years, particularly in 2006, comes at a time when the Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau (SECB), a group of the Singapore Tourism Board, is ramping up its efforts to capture a bigger slice of the Business Travel and Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) market, with aggressive targets to raise the tourism receipts of the BTMICE sector from Sin$ 4 billion in 2006 to Sin$ 10.5 billion by 2015.

As part of the efforts to spur the growth of the sector, the SECB launched the “BE in Singapore” or “Business Events in Singapore” incentive scheme in August 2006. The incentive scheme, developed in consultation with the industry, enables the local MICE industry to competitively bid for and attract a critical mass of business events to sustain a robust business pipeline.

The SECB has also adopted a new business strategy which entails close partnership with other Singapore government agencies in growing, attracting and creating business events that are centred on the nation’s key economic drivers and initiatives, complementing the development plan of these sectors, creating buzz and strengthening the strategic position of Singapore as the exchange capital for each cluster.

Mr Aloysius Arlando, Assistant Chief Executive (Business Travel and MICE Group), STB said, “We are very honoured to be ranked among the top three cities internationally, and to emerge as the Top Country for Meetings in Asia while maintaining our position for the 24th consecutive year as Asia’s Top City. These rankings by the well-respected Union of International Associations further validate and reinforce the strong performance of the industry last year which accounted for 28% or 3 million of total visitor arrivals to Singapore, and 35% or Sin$ 4 billion of total tourism receipts.”

“This robust performance and the dynamic MICE landscape in Singapore is a resounding testament of the strong cooperation and close partnership between the public and private sector, including government agencies and the MICE industry players, and I’m confident that the buoyant outlook of the industry will continue, especially with the vibrant calendar of business events in the pipeline, and many exciting tourism developments in the coming years,” he added.

Founded in 1907, the Union of International Associations is an independent, non-governmental and non-profit body whose key activities include consolidating statistics on international organizations and their international meetings. For the last 50 years, the UIA has analysed data and prepared statistics on international meetings that have taken place worldwide in the preceding year. This work is based on routine research and surveys undertaken by the UIA. The merit of the UIA statistics is that they have been compiled over several decades from the same sources and using consistent methods and criteria.

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