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1 Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. 2 Infinity pool at
Sands SkyPark. 3 There are 80 restaurants on offer.
4 The newly refurbished RISE Restaurant. 5 Inside
the ArtScience Museum.
cooking stations for an interactive cocktail
dinner. The new-look restaurant can be
transformed into a larger function space,
with capacity for up to 1000 people.
Marina Bay Sands owns and operates all of
its restaurants across the hotel, convention
centre and shopping mall, including its
celebrity restaurants, such as Adrift by David
Myers, Spago by Wolfgang Puck and Bread
Street Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay. This is good
news for event planners because it means all
event bookings for restaurants are organised
through one team, rather than liaising with a
different person for each restaurant.
Lee says demand for out-of-the-box venues
is becoming more prevalent among business
events, especially for first time clients to
Marina Bay Sands. The integrated resort
is well-equipped with stand-out spaces for
events, such as the lotus-shaped ArtScience
Museum, the versatile Event Plaza outdoor
space, and the Sands SkyPark with its iconic
infinity pool and 360-degree views of the
city. The SkyPark Observation Deck is a top
tourist destination by day, but by night, it’s
the perfect spot for cocktail functions with
capacity for up to 500 guests.
“We hoped it would be popular but we never
dreamed it would become an icon like it is,”
Lee says of SkyPark.
Lee says organisers often see better
attendance rates when they hold their
meeting or conference in Singapore, which
allows associations and organisations spread
their message further.
Meet green
Marina Bay Sands was the first facility in
Singapore to adopt Singapore Tourism
Board’s sustainability guidelines for the
business events industry in 2013. A Green
Meeting Concierge helps clients craft
sustainable meetings, which can include
sustainable food and beverage options,
waste management practices and an
Event Impact Statement that captures an
event’s energy and water consumption.
“On incentives, they rebook the program
because people tend to work harder, they see
[Marina Bay Sands] as a reward,” he says. In October, Marina Bay Sands embarked
on a landmark partnership with the
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
to raise the seafood sustainability
standards within the resort and across
Asia. Under the partnership, Marina
Bay Sands aims to have 50 per cent of
its total seafood by volume responsibly
sourced by 2020.
And if you thought Marina Bay Sands was
already big enough, think again. Lee says
discussions are underway about a possible
expansion. Marina Bay Sands senior vice president
hotel operations Ian Wilson says the
integrated resort procures up to four
million kilograms of seafood each year.
“The only expansion we would do at Sands
would have to be connected somehow with
this facility,” he says. “We wouldn’t go over
to S entosa [Island] and build a competing
thing, we’d want to add. We’ve talked to
the government about that, we think there’s
possibilities, those are in discussion.” “In partnership with WWF, we hope to
elevate sustainability standards, raise
awareness among our guests and
inspire other industry players to follow
suit,” he says.
“That gives them better reach for whatever
agenda they’re pushing,” he says.
Lee says repeat customers to Marina Bay
Sands also reap the benefits.
www.cimmagazine.com Convention & Incentive Marketing, Issue 6, 2017 17