Alicia has 30 years’ working experience in international meeting, corporate events, luxury travel and tourism industry with CITS, from an incentive tour guide, national and international escort promoted to be a Travel Account manager and a PCO as well as a sales director and professional for incentive travel and business event industry. She was Deputy General Manager, CITE MICE when she started her own consulting company in 2013. Alicia is also a Board Director of SITE Global (2015 – 2017) and Deputy General Secretary of China M.I.C.E Committee, China Association of Travel Services. In addition, she is a member of MPI and ICCA and received professional PCO training from IAPCO in 2001.

Topic: Challenging Times for Association Meetings | Association Day Forum 1
The Future of MICE in China | Keynote Address

Mr. Allen Hu Jun joined Suzhou International Expo Center in 2006 and is now SCEC’s Chief Representative in Shanghai. He is mainly responsible for exploring business and strategic partnerships in Shanghai and its surrounding areas for exhibition center, theater, modern museum, hotel, exhibitions and performance brokerage resources owned by SCEC. Within the over 10 years’ career with MICE, Mr. Hu has successfully executed various marketing strategies, including organizing exhibitions, managing venues, building and marketing conference centers and hotels and exploring business for modern museums and theaters. He has been playing an active role in international conferences and exhibitions organized by UFI, ICCA, IAEE and IAPCO. Being a versatile veteran in MICE, he has developed unique insights on marketing and targeted management of venues in second-tier exhibition cities.

As Chief Office Director of Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League; Mr. Song has founded and promoted Table Soccer in China. He was selected as “World Economy Top 10 Chinese of the Year” in 2008, and also successfully organized Olympic Athletes Friendly Match in Olympic Village during the 29th Olympic Games which remained very precious cultural heritage for Beijing Olympic Games. Mr. Song and his team were praised by the state leaders. 

In 2009, Mr. Song founded Great Wall Club and Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC), and organized the GMIC from years 2009 – 2012 successfully, gaining special attention from the mobile Internet industry worldwide. Mr. Song Founded Global Mobile Game Confederation (GMGC) in 2012 and organized the annual Global Game Congress in Beijing (GMGC Beijing), the most important gaming congress in the China and world. GMGC global events are also held in Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, San Francisco and many other cities worldwide.

ELLA has been working in Spring International Travel Service since 1995, taking positions of Assistant to General Manager of Spring International Travel Service, General Manager of the Exhibition Company, Deputy General Manager of Spring Travel, and Director of Spring Airlines. Her experience with MICE dates back to 1998. In 1999, she was trained on IAPCO and led the company to join ICCA to become its first conference travel member in Mainland China. From 2003 to 2005, Ella oversaw reception services for the 53rd, 54th and 55th Miss World Finals, assisting Sanya municipal government with all services required to make the world-class event a success. From 2003 onwards, Ella led her team to enter the Formula 1 travel market and they remain the most important partner of F1 Grand Prix Shanghai. Later, Ella led the MICE team to serve Beijing Olympic Games 2008 and Shanghai Expo 2010, delivering excellent performance leveraging a combination of capabilities in organizing large-scale events and providing MICE services. Starting from 2011, she attempted to introduce charity to MICE business, founded the charity organization “Warmth · Pamir” and organized various charity travel programs, which were highly praised by the society and media. Currently, Ella is a member of the Standing Committee of Changning District’s CPPCC, Shanghai, and an MICE consultant for Nanjing and Sanya.

Topic: Second Wave Cities, An Upcoming Target Destination | Association Day Forum 3

Izumi has been devoted to hospitality industry for 26 years since college days. Her university's professor recommended Izumi to part-time work at the infant company which was the very first PCO in Fukuoka sponsored by Kyushu University's professors. It was unknown world but so challenging and attractive to keep her staying in local city after graduation. After 4 years' working at PCO, Izumi had been working at "Sea Hawk Hotel" for 19 years.  She learned lots of sales know-how and experiences, especially rebranding and management as the first director of sales in Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk, the largest Hilton in Asia-pacific. All these career achievement has been of great use in her new platform "Meeting Place Fukuoka".

Jeffers Miruka is the President of the African Society of Association Executives (AfSAE), a recently launched professional community of association executives in Africa, akin to ASAE. AfSAE is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Jeffers is also the Executive Manager of the African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE) a Nairobi based professional association of agricultural economists. Jeffers is Kenyan and has over 12 years combined experience in association management and the MICE industry. He was recently appointed by the Minister for Tourism (Kenya) to a Taskforce on the Establishment and Operationalization of the Kenya Convention Bureau. He has an impressive experience in association development in Africa. Globally, he is best known as the African associations ambassador.

Topic: How To Select The Right Destination | Association Day Forum 4

Dr. Jia Xiao Fang is President of China International Health & Medical Tourism Association (CIHMTA), the Greater China’s largest and leading health tourism and medical tourism industry platform. She is Vice-President of Global Healthcare Travel Council (GHTC), Chairman of World Health & Medical Tourism Conference and Expo, Chairman of Silk Road International Health Tourism Summit. Dr. Jia has devoted herself to the globally strategic cooperation with health and medical tourism institutes, corporations, agencies and medical insurance providers; international B2G / B2B business development in health and medical tourism industry. By collaborating with the China government authorities, she also works hard to set up medical tourism accreditation and certification system in China. She has took part in several government health and medical tourism programs by providing consultancy in branding and marketing strategy, cross-border collaboration, international trade, business development, investment, projects /programs /portfolios management solutions. Dr. Jia serves as consultant and advisor to several China international healthcare clusters, health & medical tourism destinations. With her multi-faceted experiences and expertise, she was very honored to have been invited as Advisory Board Member, Moderator, Keynote Speaker, Industry Panel Expert of many international healthcare and senior care industry conferences/ summits/ forums. 

Topic: Challenging Times For Association Meetings? | Association Day Forum 1

Joost de Meyer was born in the Netherlands. During his 25 years of working within the European Travel Trade, Joost worked primarily in management positions for various Dutch and German tour operators. Moving to Florida in 1997, Joost became a partner in First Incentive Travel and at the beginning of 2000, Joost and his wife Iris became the owners of First Incentive Travel. In 2009, Joost and Iris added First Incentive Travel International to their portfolio. Joost travelled to almost 140 countries during his career and has an extensive international experience. Joost was named "Member of the Year" at the SITE International Conference 2005. He was a member of the International Board of Directors of SITE from January 2007 – December 2010. He was the chair of the host committee for the 2013 SITE Global conference in Orlando. During the IMEX Gala 2015 Joost was rewarded as the “SITE Master Motivator 2015”. Joost is a regular speaker about “incentive travel and how to be successful” at conferences all over the world. He is a mentor of more than 15 students and young leaders in the world. Joost is a member of several advisory boards.

Topic: How To Select The Right Destination | Association Day Forum 4

Chairwoman of K&A International Co., Ltd. and Expo Union Corporation, Kitty Wong has worked diligently in the industry for decades. Wong and her team have organized countless successful events, showing extraordinary creativity and execution. For her efforts in promoting green MICE, she was praised as the “Green Lady” of the MICE industry. By gracing the cover of the Asian edition of Headquarters, a world-famous MICE trade journal, Wong became the first woman from the Taiwanese MICE industry to ascend to the world stage.

Topic: Association Trending: Go Global or Local? | Association Day Forum 2
How To Select The Right Destination | Association Day Forum 4

Ulrike was born in Vienna, Austria, where she studied and started teaching. After teaching teenagers for over two years, she found that she enjoys speaking in public but definitely not as a teacher. In the early 80s, she left for Kuwait and learned how to integrate in a completely different society, accepting the everyday challenges and hurdles as a woman in the Arabic world. In 1984, she moved to Denmark with her Danish husband. After 6 months of intensive training, learning, repeating she finally spoke Danish and found a job. The hotel and meeting industry was her interest, and she provided support and guidance as a convention manager at SAS International Hotels, later as Director of Sales. In 1995 Ulrike moved back to Vienna and since 15 years ago, she has been working at the Vienna Convention Bureau. In 2011, Ulrike was elected in the Board of Directors at ICCA (International Congress & Convention Association) where she serves as second Vice President. 

Topic: How To Select The Right Destination | Association Day Forum 4