ITB Asia News 2019 Preview Edition

10 TRADE TALK THE EVENTS

10 TRADE TALK THE EVENTS INDUSTRY IS EVOLVING WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND MORE PEOPLE ARE COMING IN TO HIRE VENUES AND UNDERGO NEW PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCES. Christopher Lee Founder, Venuexplorer.com.sg Meeting MICE demand – the right way Venueexplorer.com.sg now under the umbrella of Meetings.com – at ITB Asia to spread the word and “network” Christopher Lee, Founder of venuexplorer.com.sg, talks about the recent partnership with Meetings.com, and how the MICE market is evolving from a demand point of view. We asked him to tell us a little more about his organisation, and how he started out in the business. I’ve been working in the events and entertainment business industry for almost 15 years, servicing hundreds of corporate clients. We started off with simple dinners and dance projects, then slowly moved into other segments such as exhibitions, meetings, conferences, weddings and road shows. Over time, we gained a pool of regular clients who placed their trust in us and asked us to manage their yearly calendars of projects, from sourcing venues to catering services and entertainment. Nowadays, for venue hiring in Singapore, venuexplorer.com.sg is emerging as one of the leading online venue marketplaces. There are more than 100 venue space options available on venuexplorer.com.sg including different restaurants, bars, country clubs, unique venues like karting circuits, Singapore Turf Club and many more. In just a few clicks, be it corporate or individual, one can hire the ideal venue. Our acquisition by hotelplanner. com will definitely broaden our canvas and we are really thrilled about this partnership. It is a win for both parties. Our target is to increase the market share by up to 300 event spaces by the end of this year. By 2020, we are hoping to broaden our network to Asia Pacific to cover the needs of corporates as well as individuals to assist them in getting the right venue spaces with our highly compatible products. The events industry is evolving with new technologies and more people are coming in to hire venues and undergo new personalized experiences. All of us at venuexplorer.com.sg are really eager to be at the lead of these changes. How hard is it for people to “get things right” when booking for weddings, conferences, parties, product launches, etc., and how do you help? In general, it can be a real headache. But it is very easy and convenient to use venuexplorer.com.sg. Options available on the platform allow consumers to search for places of their preferences. They can easily search for an appropriate place and it lessens their difficulties in sourcing for good venues. The venuexplorer. com.sg platform saves the customers from the hassle of calling and getting quotations for venues. Our platform provides the facility of instant booking and consumers can hire venues for their next events. If consumers are unable to search for their ideal venue online, they can simply ring one of our venue experts and they will provide a list of suitable venues according to their requirements. We are also offering a number of other services, such as anger management activities, bungee jumping, or bike riding for corporate travellers. What are you seeing as being the key trends in terms of MICE bookings at the moment? It is quite common for many corporate travellers and individuals to seek distinctive venues for their events as they are moving away from the traditional places such as hotels. Everything is now available online and people can book hotels, rooms and restaurants, but there was no facility that offered a one-stop online venue booking platform. Such a platform can ease the life of many people. As you are attending ITB Asia, what are the main things you will be looking for at the show? We will share our platform and are looking forward to partnerships for the growth of our network in the Asia Pacific region. How important is it for you to network at events like this? It has great importance for us as it definitely helps us in the growth of our platform. With this opportunity, we will come in direct contact with our partners, or client and we can personally share the benefits and features of our platform ITB ASIA NEWS • Thursday 10 October 2019 www.itb-asia-news.com

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 11 ASIA IS A REGION IN WHICH WE’RE SEEING CONTINUED GROWTH AND IT CONTINUES TO BE A FOCUS FOR OUR BUSINESS. Angel Llull Mancas Vice President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Booking,.com The evolution of Booking.com in APAC Exclusive interview: Angel Llull Mancas, Vice President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Booking.com The Dutch Online Travel Agency, Booking.com has been present in the Asia-Pacific region for 11 years. In an interview with Angel Llull Mancas, Vice President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Booking.com we asked him about the current trends in online bookings in the region. With increasing mobile penetration globally and consumers in Asia being at the forefront of all things mobile, travellers are looking to their mobile devices to help them do more, see more and experience more before, during and after their trips. Today, more than 50% of accommodation reservations on Booking.com happen through mobile devices. Intra-region travel is also burgeoning with the influx of low-cost carriers, simplified visa processes and growth in supply. That being said, we also see similar online booking trends that transcend the region. Globally, we continue to see an increasing overlap between business and leisure travel, with people increasingly tying personal travel into a business trip. We’re also seeing a demand for more unique experiences and the appetite to explore different places to stay. Which regions are emerging? Asia is a region in which we’re seeing continued growth and it continues to be a focus for our business. It is certainly a region with many unique aspects and challenges. On the one hand, you have markets such as Japan, Singapore and Thailand, with an extremely strong inbound booker market and well-developed tourism industries. There are also markets that are just opening up to tourists, like Myanmar, and markets that are quite fragmented within themselves such as Indonesia. It is an extraordinary region with many complexities and many amazing destinations for visitors locally and globally to experience. How are you working in India? India is an important market for us where we see a lot of growth potential. We opened our first office in Mumbai in 2012 with just 4 employees, and we now have over 80 employees across 4 offices in the country. We offer close to 45k properties in the country, which represents thousands of listings across traditional hotels as well as homes, apartments and other types of unique places to stay. We are a meaningful player today in the market, with Booking.com having grown at about 68 per cent in 2017- 18 in terms of supply. You have been moving into the home and room rental market. How is that coming along? What most people don’t realise is that the first apartment on Booking.com was listed in 2000, before Airbnb ever even existed. Through our rigorous A/B testing, also known as bucket testing, we learned early on that travellers want options in one place. They may not always want to stay in a home or in a hotel, so showcasing our breadth of offerings is what customers want. Now, we see other sites following suit. Today this is a big and very important business for us. We have seen over 3 billion guest arrivals at Booking.com across all properties since 2007, with 750M guest arrivals in our alternative accommodations segment alone since 2007. Booking. com also doesn’t charge customer fees. What we’re striving towards is providing travellers with the widest selection of offerings and leveraging technologies like AI and machine learning to narrow down the options to help them make their decisions. How important is ITB Asia for you as a platform for networking? I always look forward to ITB Asia. It’s a great moment to catch up with many of our key business contacts, but also to come together with thought leaders from across the industry, evaluate the trends that are shaping the future of our business and get inspired by the incredible work that’s being done around Asia and throughout the world ITB ASIA NEWS • Thursday 10 October 2019