THERE is great potential for the meetings industry in China to be managed more effectively, according to American Express Meetings & Events director for Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australia, Danielle Puceta.
Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily at the recently concluded China Business Travel Forum in Shanghai, Puceta said most clients there still view meetings management in an individualised or consolidated manner.
The former is defined as seeking support from travel consultants when help is needed. The latter approach is to ask for support in the area of savings and control, but the adoption rate of such support varies.
Puceta cited a case wherein a client lacked the ability to track meeting spend, supplier base, hotel usage and the number of meetings. She said: “The client implemented a centralised meetings registration system, which required all meetings to be registered, and the result was that they discovered they had underestimated their meeting spend by 40 per cent. They were now able to understand their meetings volumes and types of meetings.”
Another client had two meetings overlapping in timing and attendees. With the help of AMEX, the client was able to book the same venue for both meetings and negotiated US$156,000 in savings on room rates and F&B. They also reduced operating costs by sharing onsite staff.
However, pharmaceutical and technology companies in China seem to moving beyond these approaches and are looking at processes such as pre-travel, best practices, consistency, payment and data collection and analysis.
Said Puceta: “They are using the enterprise approach to meetings or continuously improving their meetings program.”
By Patricia Wee
