THE historic water town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang Province is banking on international trade shows to raise its profile among foreign meeting and incentive planners.

Yao Jie, marketing director, sales department, Wuzhen Tourism Co, told TTGmice e-Weekly that the tourism body had exhibited at several international trade shows in recent years (such as ITB Berlin and IT&CM China), and its participation at AIME 2013 was its second to-date.

Yao said: “We did not get many business leads from AIME 2012, but I’m certain that our presence at the show last year helped place Wuzhen in the minds of buyers. I realised that many AIME buyers this year came to us with an existing knowledge of Wuzhen, which was not the case in 2012.

“Furthermore, at AIME this year, we had several buyers from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia who came by to say that they were impressed by what we offer and were considering taking events to Wuzhen.”

She added: “We get 1,000 domestic meeting and incentive groups on average every year, but international events come nowhere close. It is a shame because Wuzhen has many top quality resorts and unique venues that can do wonders for high-end corporate events.

“We recently had a private dinner event at Zhaoming Academy (an ancient architecture with a library, exhibition hall, courtyards and gardens, etc) for members of the (US-based) Rolls Royce Owners’ Club. Dinner was set-up on a long banquet table, just like what was done in the past.”

Yao believes that much more branding is needed to truly grow the destination’s international MICE business, and said Wuzhen Tourism Co would continue to showcase the destination’s MICE capabilities at international travel shows.

TOURISM Australia will receive A$12.5 million (US$12.8 million) for the second tranche of the government’s Asia Marketing Fund by July 1, an amount dedicated to growing Asian footfalls during the 2013/2014 financial year.

Speaking to TTGmice e-Weekly in an interview, Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia, explained that the fund was a percentage of the Passenger Movement Charge. “So the more people travel, the bigger the fund will get,” he said.

The Asia Marketing Fund comes on top of Tourism Australia’s overall budget for destination promotion across the world.

According to McEvoy, part of the second phase of funding will be used to “up the ante on business events in Australia”.

He said: “We will invest some of the money into doing what we do well in this business events sector. That means the usual trade shows, road shows, but more importantly, efforts to get planners to come to Australia. We will be doing familiarisations bigger and better.

“We have Dreamtime (a premier incentive business showcase) at the end of this year (in Melbourne), and we will do that exceptionally well. We will have 125 (MICE) buyers from around the world, a lot of them – perhaps half or a little more – will be from Asia.”

The fund will also be used on “aviation attraction or aviation partnerships” across Asia to create more air access from the region into Australia.

Tourism Australia’s efforts to attract more Chinese leisure and business travellers will get a financial boost too.

McEvoy said: “We undertook last year our second-tier city strategy in China. We have been very active in 11 cities around Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This year we’ve gone into Chengdu, Chongqing and Qingdao. A good example of our success is Sichuan Airlines’ launch of its first direct flight from Chengdu to Melbourne. That will really help to open up the rest of the country directly to Australia.”

Meanwhile, Tourism Australia has beefed up the Business Events Australia website (www.businessevents.australia.com) with an intensive library of business events case studies. Featured events include the 51^st Annual International Conference of the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts which took 623 attendees to Perth in June 2010, and the 9^th World Indigenous Women and Wellness Conference in Darwin which was attended by 560 delegates.

“We are using advocates to tell our story. We are letting other people tell our story because they will tell it almost more passionately and through different eyes,” he said.

PARKROYAL Darling Harbour, Sydney reopened in February after an A$20 million (US$20.5 million) rejuvenation that gave it new interiors and the latest in hotel technology.

Acclaimed design firm Hassell employed a bright palette of natural and earthy shades and textures, inspired by the Australian landscape, for the 340-key hotel’s new look.

The new interiors extend from the hotel’s lobby to guestrooms and five meeting rooms. The event spaces, which were gutted and recreated, now feature state-of-the-art technology and are supported by an in-house staging and event service. Blackwattle Room is the largest event space in the hotel, capable of hosting 200 banquet guests or 280 cocktail-style. It is adjacent to a spacious pre-function space that overlooks Darling Harbour.

There is also a new club lounge on the top floor, as well as rejuvenated dining establishments.

Meanwhile, new technology systems installed in the hotel allows guest preferences, such as their ideal check-out time, to be conveyed to relevant staff ahead of their arrival. Room keys are able to track guest movements so that staff can be alerted if a guest with messages or a package waiting has just returned, or if they are leaving the hotel and their room door has been left ajar.

The hotel is looking to streamline the check-in process further by encoding smartphones as room keys.