Singapore: World"s leading meeting country and city

Singapore has retained its position as the leading meeting city and country in the world according to the Union of International Associations (UIA) 2013 Global Rankings. Named Top International Meeting Country for the third year running and Top International Meeting City for the seventh consecutive year, Singapore has once again been recognized as a choice international meeting destination.

In 2013, 994 of the meetings hosted in Singapore met UIA’s stipulated qualifying criteria1, a 4.4% increase from 952 in 2012. It also formed 9.4% of UIA’s database of meetings, which was represented by 174 countries and 1,465

cities.

The UIA ranking is the latest in a list of accolades for Singapore as MICE destination. This year, Singapore was also named Asia’s Top Convention City for the 12th consecutive year, by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA). Singapore’s record of 175 ICCA events in 2013 was a 16.7% increase from 150 in 2012, the strongest year-on-year growth since 2005.

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 Organization (HUGO) International who organized 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.”

Notable events which were held in Singapore in 2013 include the IFLA World Library and Information Congress, the 60th Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Annual Conference, the Amway Japan Leadership Achievement Seminar, the World Engineers’ Summit as well as the World Retail Congress Asia Pacific.

This interest in Singapore and strong support of the local community have contributed to a robust pipeline of events. To date, Singapore has secured six world congresses, including the World Congress on Brain Mapping Therapeutics (SBMT) 2016 and World Congress of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus (ISDE) 2016. In addition, the inaugural Asian edition of SpineWeek 2016 is expected to attract over 7,000 delegates to Singapore, making it their largest meeting to date. Upcoming Asia Pacific congresses include the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Asia-Pacific Advancement Conference 2015, Regional Dermatology Conference 2016 and Asia Pacific Congress of Hypertension 2017.

“We are very happy to be named the top meeting country by UIA once again,” Neeta Lachmandas, Assistant Chief Executive of the Singapore Tourism Board, said. “Understanding our customers’ needs has always been key a focus for us, and we will continue to emphasize our efforts on reliability and efficiency, giving them peace of mind when they attend or hold their events in Singapore.”

Singapore: World"s leading meeting country and city