Trade in wedded bliss
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts recently conducted its first ‘MICE and Wedding Showcase,’ to present its GCC and Indian Ocean properties' offerings and facilities to trade partners in India.
The Hong Kong-based luxury hotel group, ShangriLa Hotels and Resorts owns and/or manages over 90 hotels and resorts throughout Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East, and Europe, and has a room inventory of over 38,000. In addition, new hotels are under development in Mainland China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Qatar and Sri Lanka.
The hotel organised a three-city roadshow in New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai to interact with its travel trade partners in India, showcasing its facilities and incentives on offer for weddings and MICE events.
“India is an emerging market for both weddings and MICE. There has been a 20 per cent year on year growth in the MICE segment from India and travellers are now choosing offbeat des- tinations to host weddings. Destinations like Muscat, Mauritius, Maldives, Sri Lanka are gaining popularity as wedding venues,” says Alok Chakravarty, Director of Sales and Marketing, Shangri- La’s- Eros Hotel, New Delhi.
He claims that the newly launched Shangri-La’s Events Collection Programme offers a host of benefits like inclusions in the deal, redeemable points at any of the properties to the trade partners when they organise weddings and MICE events at the group's properties. “We want to make doing business with us easy and also reward the agents for doing business with us,” says Vivek Braganza, Director of Business Development-India Regional Liason Office, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts.
Braganza points out that even though the primary markets are metros, a large business for outbound weddings and MICE movements is also being generated from Tier II and III cities like Ahemdabad, Jamshedpur, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, etc. The property in New Delhi also witnessed a fair amount of weddings from the Middle East, the US and UK informs Chakravarty. The company will add its 100th property by the end of 2016 with the opening of its Kerry Hotel, Hong Kong which is a 545-room property and Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo, is also expected to open in Q2 of 2017.