Friday, 26th September 2014
Sri Lanka Convention Bureau together with SriLankan Airlines and the MICE industry attended the CIBTM MICE Trade Fair in Beijing for the second consecutive year and this time to strengthen the relationship with existing buyers and set the stage for the industry to establish new contacts with a large number of MICE buyers who are incentive houses, DMCs, meeting planners and tour operators with MICE specialty.
CIBTM is China’s leading meetings, incentives and business travel exhibition which took place for the ninth consecutive year from 17-19 September 2014 at the China National Convention Centre (CNCC), Beijing, China. It was attended by 259 exhibitors. 424 hosted buyers attended this year’s show.
This was a plat form for 5,300 Chinese and foreign meeting professionals to interact with the industry’s entire gamut of suppliers: destination management companies, convention bureaus, destinations, hotels and resorts, technology providers, etc.
The bureau was able to educate the visiting Chinese buyers at CIBTM on the new developments in Sri Lanka with infrastructure and new properties in various locations while the industry members were satisfied with the contacts made for business that will come Sri Lanka’s way in 2015 and onward.
SLCB and SriLankan Airlines were respresented by Kumudu Hennedige and Dimuthu Tennakoon while Sri Lanka Tourism Representative in China Sherry Gou assisted the industry members during the fair.
“We want to break into the Chinese Outbound MICE sector specially the incentive travel niche which is as big as seven million out of 140 million outbound visitors by the year 2015 although the incentive travel is still a new concept in China compared to Europe.”
Chinese corporates will move onto offering more Incentives by way of travel and Sri Lanka will not fall behind to have a reasonable share from this market,” says SLCB CEO Vipula Wanigasekera.
from http://www.ft.lk/2014/09/26/sri-lanka-reaches-chinese-mice-outbound-market-at-cibtm-2014/
