Great Hotels of the World (GHOTW), the sales and marketing alliance for independent luxury hotels has revealed its top five predictions for the most popular destinations for meetings and incentive travel during 2011 and beyond.
1. Montenegro
Having experienced dramatic growth in the leisure sector over the past few years, Montenegro is rapidly emerging as a popular destination for meeting and incentive planners. Set on the Adriatic coast and often referred to as one of Europe’s best kept secrets, the country offers endless experiences for incentives and team building activities as well as excellent facilities for conferences and meetings.
The hotel industry is booming with huge investment in hotel development and infrastructure and with most of Europe being less than a two hour flight away, Montenegro is fast becoming the destination of choice to provide new and memorable experiences.
2. Croatia
Widely known as the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’ due to its high tourism standards, Croatia has a lot to offer the meetings and incentives industry. With such attractive destinations such as Dubrovnik, Zagreb, Split and Hvar and well-connected through nine international airports, Croatia is fast becoming an attractive option for congresses, meetings and incentive trips as event planners look for first rate business travel destinations
3. South Africa
With beautiful scenery, a sunny climate, cultural diversity and excellent value for money, South Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing MICE destinations.
The World Cup provided a great opportunity for South African cities to showcase their MICE infrastructure and Johannesburg and Cape Town in particular have become popular choices for buyers thanks to their capacity to host events across a variety of sizes and prices.
Many new hotels and convention centres are being built and existing facilities are undergoing refurbishment. Safari incentive trips are also becoming more popular.
4. India
With the latest technology and facilities, warm hospitality, rich heritage and natural beauty, India is an ideal destination for meetings and congresses and offers a unique and exotic destination that can be combined with a leisure holiday. India boasts many world-class convention centres as well as stunning scenery, transforming an annual business meeting into a glamorous and enjoyable event.
5. Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon is emerging as one of Europe’s top MICE destinations thanks to its convenient location, modern infrastructure, good value, mild climate and varied choice of venues and has been one of the most popular requests through the Great Hotels’ MICE desk in the past year. Chosen for many high profile events in recent years, Lisbon’s reputation as an international business destination is soaring and this is set to continue throughout 2011 and beyond.
