The inaugural Singapore Experience Awards were presented on November 9, 2009, recognising individuals and organisations from sectors encompassing Business Travel and MICE, hospitality, retail, dining, entertainment, attractions, education and healthcare.

The winners are judged to have shown they are the best in delivering a holistic visitor experience – one that packages product and service delivery to create a distinctive and compelling experience.

Association Conference of the Year
Siggraph Asia 2008 (Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics), Koelnmesse

Michael Dreyer, managing director, Koelnmesse (left): “Preparations started more than 18 months before the conference and there were five meetings with the conference committee in different locations around the world.

“Managing and bringing the views of artists, academics, researchers and entrepreneurs into the conference was key to the creative and technical success of Siggraph Asia 2008.

“The biggest challenge was that, as a first-time event, many potential participants in Asia did not know what a Siggraph conference was about as it has been based in the US. We hosted pre-conference events and marketed heavily via online trailers of our conference programmes.

“Hosting the first Siggraph Asia in Singapore generated many business and research link to the top institutions and opinion leaders globally. There were 3,400 attendees, almost half from overseas, and feedback on the quality and attractiveness of this technical and art conference was very positive.”

Meeting of the Year
Merrill Lynch Asia Rising Stars Conference, Merrill Lynch

Anders Wihlborn, managing director and head of client management and analytics group (Asia-Pacific), Bank of America Merrill Lynch: “The Stars Conference is a signature event for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and has drawn some of the world’s most respected luminaries.

The Stars Conference has also been hailed by our clients as being one of the best annual events in the region. We are very grateful for this acknowledgement of our efforts, which underline our continued commitment to quality events in Singapore.”

The Singapore Experience Awards is decided by an independent panel of judges. This year’s awards received more than 24,000 unique nominations. Of these, 251 were self-submissions for the Events; Experience; and Marketing and Media categories. The Customer Service category, which was the only one by public nomination, received 24,163 nominations.

For more information, visit www.singaporeexperience.com.