Airport Hotel To Target MICE Visitors

Source : The Business Times, August 7, 2007

Crowne Plaza Changi to open next April, expects 65-75% occupancy

AIRPORT hotels normally cater to transit and transient travellers, but the upcoming Crowne Plaza Changi Airport is casting its net wider. The US$60 million hotel plans to aggressively target the corporate and meetings incentives, conventions & exhibitions (MICE) traveller segments.

Touch down: The 320-room Crowne Plaza Changi will be linked to Terminal 3's arrival hall. Mr Winterton (above) expects average room rate to be over $200

The 320-room hotel at Terminal 3 will start operations in April 2008, said Mark Winterton, the hotel's newly-appointed general manager. Crowne Plaza is one of the brands managed by UK hospitality group InterContinental Hotels.

'Our key markets will be the MICE, corporate and leisure travellers,' Mr Winterton told BT in an interview. 'But just by the nature of the location, we will also pick up the transit business.'

He does not see the location as being a hindrance to drawing MICE travellers. The hotel itself has facilities to host events for up to 250 people in its ballroom.

Mr Winterton said that the average room rate at the four-star Crowne Plaza will be 'over $200'. He predicts that the hotel will see an occupancy rate of 65-75 per cent next year - and it will only get better.

The hotel has already started marketing itself as a location for MICE events abroad, and so far, the response has been 'very good', Mr Winterton said.

In 2008, nearly 45 per cent of the hotel's guests are likely to be corporate and MICE visitors, he said. Another 15 per cent of the guests are expected to be drawn from the transit crowd. The rest will be made up of leisure travellers, among others.

The hotel, which was designed by local architecture firm Woha Designs, is conceptualised as a uniquely Singaporean - tropical and Asian - environment.

The hotel's interior will use open walkways and outdoor gardens to create what it says will be a 'balmy tropical ambience'.

The reception and lobby area on the first floor will be linked to Terminal 3's arrival hall. Guests will also be able to conveniently reach Terminals 1 and 2 through a 'people mover' system that will link all three passenger terminals.