THE VICTORIAN state capital, which is gearing up to host Amway India this December (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 10, 2011), is hungry for more Indian meetings and is devising “smarter” ways to get them.
One of these strategies is a new partnership the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau (MCVB) is exploring to ink with nine-month-old Hyderabad Convention Visitors Bureau (HCVB) – a toddler in the game but the only regional CVB in India.
MCVB director-International Meetings, Edwina San, envisioned “cyber cities” such as Hyderabad and partners like HCVB as door-openers to a bigger database of India corporate planners. “They, in turn, are hungry to learn from us. There are also bid opportunities and sharing of association meeting leads,” she said.
The Amway India Leadership Seminar in December will also provide new learning points for MCVB. It will be the largest group, 4,400 pax, in one wave to descend on Melbourne, posing its own set of logistical and security challenges that the city is preparing to tackle head-on, said San.
Melbourne hosted a bigger, 7,500-pax Amway China in 2008, but that group came in four waves.
– Full report in TTGmice, February 2012 issue
