Singapore Expo Halls 7-10 Completed and Open for Business

Event organizers in the MICE (Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conventions and Exhibitions) industry in Singapore will now have access to more MICE facilities, with the completion of the interim expansion of the Singapore Expo, the largest facility for MICE events in Singapore and one of the largest exhibition centres in Southeast Asia.

With the expansion, Singapore Expo now has four additional halls of 10,000 square metres each. Located near the Expo MRT station at the Singapore Expo grounds, the additional halls bring the total event space offered by the venue to 100,000 square metres, up from the previous 60,000 square metres.

Mr Aloysius Arlando, Acting Assistant Chief Executive (Business Travel & MICE Group) of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), said, “The Asian region is now witnessing buoyant economic growth, driven by the expanding economies of China and India and emerging opportunities within ASEAN. This has resulted in an increase in business travel across the region, and the need for effective business platforms to stimulate business growth. We are also seeing an attendant growth in business and MICE events, including corporate meetings, tradeshows and conferences. By 2015, STB projects that the Asia Pacific region will attract over 100 million business travellers and MICE visitors.”

“This interim expansion of the Singapore Expo is part of a wider effort to ensure that Singapore has the necessary capabilities and MICE infrastructure to meet the needs of this expanding business travel and MICE market. For one thing, the additional halls serve the immediate need for space by some of Singapore’s expanding tradeshows. Another key area is the need for versatile MICE facilities which are able to meet the increasingly multi-purpose needs of business event organizers. The additional halls will help to meet these needs. They will also enable Singapore to build on its reputation as a preferred venue for MICE events in Asia.”

Currently, the business travel and MICE industry contributes about 25% to Singapore’s total visitor arrivals, and 30% to its total tourism receipts. STB estimates that the industry will grow at an average rate of 15% annually over the next 10 years, and that, by 2015, business and MICE events will be contributing to 35% of Singapore’s total tourism receipts.

Construction works on the four halls began in October 2004. They were completed in August this year, and the management of the halls has been undertaken by Singex Venues Pte Ltd, the appointed management company for Singapore Expo.

Singex Venues is optimistic about the line-up of upcoming events and the facility’s increased flexibility with the additional halls; with this increased flexibility, Singapore Expo will be able to manage more than one mega-scale event at any given period. Singex Venues will also be able to offer more organizers event space during peak periods, which will result in a wider variety of events being held at Singapore Expo. With the trend leaning towards more business events combining different business platforms such as conferences and product launches together with the traditional tradeshow format, the additional halls offer organisers more space for modular meeting rooms as well as entertainment and hospitality space.

Mr Steven Seet, Group General Manager of the Singex group of companies, said, “With the current trend of business events requiring the flexible use of event space for simultaneous conferences, exhibitions, break-out sessions etc, Singapore Expo’s increase in capacity will now be able to meet that need. We hope to see more mega events, like the International Furniture Fair Singapore, optimizing Singapore Expo’s ground-level advantage and the flexibility of its event space to organise successful events.”

The first business events to make use of the additional halls include the mega textile machinery tradeshow ITMA ASIA 2005 (17-21 October), with an expected 800 exhibitors and 30,000 trade visitors, and a 6,000-strong corporate convention, also in October. In addition to these large-scale events, several home-grown exhibitions have also been growing in size and stature, requiring more space with each edition. For example, CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia attracted more than 60,000 visitors and more than 2,000 exhibiting companies from 54 countries, covering 62,000 square metres of exhibition space at the Singapore Expo in their last showing. The additional Halls 7-10 now provide such shows with the necessary business event space required, as well as the flexibility to expand further.

Mr Stephen Tan, Chief Executive of Singapore Exhibition Services which organises CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia, said, “Both the shows surpassed our expectations. Looking ahead, CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia are set to grow even more next year as we project the exhibitions to occupy no less than 70,000 square metres of exhibition space when BroadcastAsia2006 moves into Halls 7 and 8 in line with Singapore Expo’s new expansion.”

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