Aerocity Events Takes off at Frankfurt IMEX

Bikramjit Ray May 12, 2016

A lot has happened at the New Delhi Aerocity, since we published our first story about the joint marketing effort in our MICE special. I got a chance to meet up with the ‘Three Musketeers’ of New Delhi Aerocity—Heddo Siebs, General Manager, Andaz Delhi; Tristan Beau De Lomenie, GM Delegate Pullman & Novotel, New Delhi Airport and Antony Page, General Manager, JW Marriott New Delhi Aerocity. Siebs was not part of our earlier story, but is a major component of Aerocity.events, their venture, which they began as founding partners, with help from TMF who are the co-ordinator for the platform.

While TMF looks to do the branding and marketing, the three properties our GMs manage are definitely big players in the whole big picture.

This story, is a follow-up of sorts, especially since a platform-aerocity.events has been formed and the trio have been to IMEX Frankfurt, one of the world’s largest fairs for the travel trade, to look at the response and of course get business.

Siebs of Andaz Delhi shared the feedback he received at the fair, “The feedback we received during IMEX from DMCs, organisers, was that we put Delhi back on the map to do big conferences. When you bring in upwards of a 1000 up to 3000 people to a destination, infrastructure has to be right. We are near the airport, right next to each other, safe, secure and people can walk from one hotel to the other. It's ideal for conferences. The metro also takes you into Connaught Place in 20 minutes”.

De Lomenie of Pullman & Novotel felt, “The response prior to going to IMEX was very shy. But we are very hopeful and confident, with the successful launch, with more visibility, with more PR, more partners will be with us".

Page from JW Marriott thought they were quietly confident that this was going to be something which would be received by the market extremely positively. “I think there was more surprise from the Indian pavilion, when they were coming and seeing that we had formulated this so quickly as a private entrepreneur”. Quickly adding that they were of course part of the bigger picture and the official campaign to get more people to visit India.

“When you're at IMEX Frankfurt you’re competing with much more than just companies, its also countries being sold as destinations. So, we are competing against Mexico, Hong Kong and Singapore. It’s a situation where we are selling New Delhi and Aerocity really more importantly as a destination. We got a lot of support from the Indian buyers, they did not realise we had so many rooms and the details,” Page said.

De Lomenie mentioned visits by companies which had done events everywhere from Thailand to all over Europe and were looking for a new destination. “We have brought Delhi into focus. We are creating not only interest for Aerocity, we are creating interest for Delhi”, he added.

There was some mention at the fare of how three general managers all from abroad were representing and selling an Indian destination, Siebs mentioned, but this was something that the three of them have had to fight since the beginning of their association.

“We had a meeting with everyone and wanted to have more founding partners before we began. We did invite everyone and the offer is still open. We have the biggest capacity in Aerocity, as far as meeting and convention capacity. But we need more partners because everyone is going to benefit. We will be getting a convention centre next to us soon, so this is the right moment to do something,” De Lomenie said.

With most major international events and conferences being booked three to five years in advance, its important for the platform to not miss opportunities like IMEX to try and get the big events to Delhi, Siebs said. “We are talking about the conventions not moving to other cities in India, but to places like Copenhagen or Johannesburg,” he added.

“When we met at IMEX, we were speaking with the likes of the Berlin Convention Bureau. There's Vienna, there's Berlin, there's Barcelona. There’s so much to learn from successful convention bureaus. We need to learn from good examples, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Siebs said.

The three founding members of the platform are formulating their three and five year plans and committing to bringing the cream of conventions to Aerocity.

“If you think about the momentum that has happened in relation to India over the last eighteen months and the Prime Minister has been active as far as visiting countries and drumming up more interest in Make in India. We are also seeing people looking at having more meetings and look for local partners to start expanding that type of concept”.

There is a long way to go for the really big players to come to Aerocity New Delhi for their events, but with the start that aerocity.events has gone, and with the commitment that the three hotels and their top management are showing, great possibilities are not out of the question.