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Mixing pleasure into business |
29 September
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With memories of summer holidays fading fast, a little bribery, sorry, incentivising, can go a long way, when your aim is to entice busy professionals away from their often frantic working environment. As such, a trip to a European island destination might be just the ticket.
Malta
 The UK is one of the more important markets for conference and incentive visitors to Malta, accounting for 13 per cent of all CIT arrivals. In recent years, heavy investment in infrastructure, increased accessibility, a sustained promotional campaign and an intensive familiarisation trip programme have repositioned Malta as a destination of choice among many UK clients.
The MICE market is a lucrative one for Malta. Conference delegates amount to 5 per cent of all tourist arrivals and total earnings from this segment amounted to Lm 19.5 million in 2004 (£30.03 million). In 2004, Malta hosted a total of 60,000 conference and incentive travel delegates.
 Over the years, the island has attracted numerous medical conferences such as Aventis and the World Medical Assembly as well as the likes of Sony, General Electric, Ford, Philips, IBM, Visa and ITV Granada as testament to the success of its product. Several, such as Aventis, have even returned staging bigger conferences.
In line with the growth of the conference and incentive industry, Malta has benefited from considerable investment in four and five star hotels and resorts with extensive state-of-the-art conference facilities. And there is substantial investment in the pipeline.
 One of the newest additions to the Maltese offering is the 282–bedroom Le Meridien St Julian’s, a new five star hotel in the picturesque Balluta Bay of St Julian’s, which opened its doors to its first guests this March. The property is situated in the grounds of a nineteenth century villa, with the original building being refurbished as part of the new hotel. The hotel boasts an atrium style 1,600 square metre Leisure and Wellness centre and a conference centre of over 1,800 sq metres of space. It will offer 14 meeting rooms for up to 315 delegates, and includes a 125-seat amphitheatre with space for desks and four wheelchair spaces. Le Meridien’s offering in Malta also includes the Le Meridien Phoenicia in Valletta, Malta’s capital city.
Malta, and its quieter sister island Gozo, have a total of 20 four and five star hotels with sophisticated conference facilities complete with audio-visual options, interpretation equipment and all the support services.
There are also 22 non-hotel based conference venues including the historic Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta, and the Hilton Malta Conference Centre in St. Julian’s. Both can accommodate 1,400 delegates.
The Malta International Airport (MIA) has a brand new arrivals hall, which opened in June. Plans for the future include the extension of its departures lounges, adding four more gates. The baggage reclaim hall will also be extended with a fifth carousel added. The planned developments at the Malta International Airport will also lead to new retail areas in the departures lounge. The project is scheduled for completion by March 2007.
"A good, quality choice for business travel"
The on-going intensive programme of familiarisation trips out of the UK has reaped very positive results for Malta. These trips have helped change clients’ perceptions about the Maltese Islands and encouraged them to see the islands as a good, quality choice for business travel and truly placed Malta on the European professionals’ map.
The short flying time from the UK (just three hours) makes Malta an ideal destination for a short-haul conference of the highest calibre, offering quality facilities coupled with Malta's scenic beauty, rich historic legacy, excellent climate and friendly, relaxed people who can speak English.
Local destination management companies have extensive experience in responding to the high standards demanded by the discerning travellers' needs with regards to accommodation, meeting facilities, tours, excursions, restaurants, entertainment and special events.
The Malta Tourism Authority has a dedicated MICE segment to assist conference and events organisers in establishing local contacts, selecting suitable conference venues, accommodation and suppliers, planning and co-ordinating site inspections.
Cyprus
 Located in the Mediterranean at the southern-most tip of the European Union, Cyprus has emerged successfully into the meetings and incentives industry and special interest travel market in the past two decades and is consistently developing its offering in this direction. Conveniently situated at the crossroads of the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, Cyprus has served as the basis for many successful international, European and regional meetings and events of Fortune 500 companies, other organisations and associations in the last few years.
 Cyprus has available a complete range of conference services of high international standards, with business-class hotels, high-end luxurious hotels with golf and spa facilities, a good selection of venues for meetings and social activities, quality audio-visual equipment and other high-tech apparatus, plus friendly professionals with solid experience in the meetings industry and excellent communication services.
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