S"pore remains world"s top host for meetings

SINGAPORE: Singapore has once again been named top international meeting city and country in the 2013 global rankings of the Union of International Associations (UIA), Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

This is the third year in a row that the city-state bagged the title of Top International Meeting Country and seventh consecutive year for Top International Meeting City.

Last year, 994 of meetings hosted in Singapore met UIA’s stipulated qualifying criteria, which rose 4.4% from 2012 and forming 9.4% of UIA’s database of meetings.

Singapore was also named Asia’s top convention city for the 12th consecutive year by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) in 2013.

Its record of 175 ICCA events last year was a 16.7% increase from 2012 – the strongest year-on-year growth since 2005.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) assistant chief executive Neeta Lachmandas said the MICE industry continued to play a significant role for the tourism sector.

MICE activities gained S$3.7 billion (about US$3 billion) or contributed 1.1% to Singapore’s gross domestic product in 2012, an increase from 0.9% in 2008.

So far, 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.

The inaugural Asian edition of SpineWeek 2016 is expected to attract over 7,000 delegates to Singapore, making it their largest meeting so far.

Upcoming Asia-Pacific congresses include the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Asia-Pacific Advancement Conference 2015, the Regional Dermatology Conference 2016 and the Asia Pacific Congress of Hypertension 2017. – Bernama

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S"pore remains world"s top host for meetings