Singapore is still world’s favorite meeting place: STB

Thanks to the thriving MICE industry.

The Union of International Association (UIA) recently released its 2013 Global Rankings, where Singapore is named ‘Top International Meeting Country’ for the 3rd year running, and ‘‘Top International Meeting City’ for the 7th consecutive year.

UIA surveyed 174 countries and 1,465 cities, and found out that Singapore formed 9.4% of its database of meetings. From 2012, the number of meetings hosted in Singapore increased by 4.4% from 952 in 2012 to 994 in 2013.

For top international meeting countries, the USA follows a not-so-distant 2nd with 799 hosted meetings, Korea at 3rd with 635 meetings and Japan at 4th with 588 meetings. Meanwhile, Brussels follows a very distant 2nd for top international meeting cities with 436 hosted meetings, and Vienna and Seoul at 3rd and 4th with 318 and 242 hosted meetings, respectively.

Singapore was also named ‘Asia’s Top Convention City’ for the 12th consecutive year, by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).

Here’s more:

Singapore’s combination of excellent infrastructure, efficiency, vibrant business ecosystem, knowledge networks, and strategic location in Asia are key attributes for meeting planners selecting the city as a host destination for their events.

“Singapore not only impressed our delegates with its well established infrastructure but also its efficiencies as a city,” comments Dr Shirlena Soh, Director of Operations, Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) International who organised the Joint Conference of Human Genome Meeting 2013 and the 21st International Congress of Genetics. “The tremendous support shown by the local scientific community was also extremely overwhelming with more than 50 thought-leaders in the areas of Genetics and Genomics speaking in this Joint Congress. Local delegates and international academic interest-groups were able to use this meeting in Singapore as a platform for ideas and to interact.”