THE SINGAPORE Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers (SACEOS) has opened its membership to trade individuals and students in a bid to reach out to a larger pool of current and future trade practitioners.
Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily on the sidelines of the second Singapore MICE Forum, which has drawn 165 trade players from 11 countries, SACEOS president, Rosalind Ng, said: “SACEOS membership was (only) offered to companies in the past, but we want to grow our membership further than the five to ten per cent seen between 2011 and 2012. So, we launched a new membership drive in March, targeted at individuals and students.
“Student members are given the opportunity to engage with the industry, gain real life experiences through internships, and see if they want to eventually join us. The common misconception students have in the MICE trade is that it involves only hotels. This isn’t true and we need to correct them, and one way to do this is to have them join SACEOS.”
Ng explained that it became necessary for SACEOS to extend its membership to individual trade practitioners, because the current corporate membership arrangement tends to restrict attendance at association events to company bosses.
“It is usually the managing director or CEO who attends SACEOS events, so benefits of networking or knowledge exchange programmes do not filter down (through the company). Yet, there are a lot of people who want to be part of our events and the trade intelligence we provide,” she said.
SACEOS individual and student membership is available at S$250 (US$201) and S$25 per annum respectively, while corporate membership rates start from S$750, depending on the size of the company.
