BEIJING, April 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts today launched the Shangri-La Events Collection and Golden Circle Event Planner Rewards, an industry-leading meeting and events loyalty programme for meeting and travel professionals. This programme will offer meeting and travel professionals and any Golden Circle member the ability to earn elite status as well as earn and redeem points for groups, meetings, conferences and events across the Shangri-La, Kerry and Hotel Jen portfolio.
With nearly 100 hotels located around the world from Lhasa to London, Shangri-La offers one of the most extensive collections of inspired meeting and event venues, boasting more than 300,000 square metres of dedicated event space. The group's hotels are known as the venues of choice for hosting heads of state, Fortune 500 companies, high-profile product launches, weddings and social events.
The new meetings and events loyalty programme dovetails with Shangri-La's "Loyalty Is" conversation and ongoing loyalty transformation, which aims to make Golden Circle one of the most attractive and meaningful hotel reward programmes.
Golden Circle Event Planner Rewards: Your Events, Your Rewards
"We are connecting with and building deeper recognition for an important group of customers as well as further extending our relationship with our existing loyal Golden Circle members. Meetings and events account for over a quarter of Shangri-La's business, and we want to reward meeting planners and event organisers for partnering with us to do what they do best," said Wee Kee Ng, vice president of loyalty and partner marketing.
Golden Circle Event Planner Rewards offers the highest level of rewards of any meetings and events loyalty programme. Planners can earn up to 40,000 Golden Circle Points on an event booking -- the equivalent of 40 complimentary room nights. In addition, it is the only programme that allows members to earn double points for any subsequent meetings or events booked in the same calendar year.
"With Event Planner Rewards, Golden Circle has significantly broadened the value we offer group and event planners worldwide. Event organisers can now earn Golden Circle points on all conferences, meetings and events as well as redeem points towards their future events and meetings or use them for leisure travel and unique culinary experiences," said Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd. Chief Marketing Officer Steven Taylor.
The Shangri-La Events Collection: Experiences You Design
As part of its focus on delivering personalised experiences, Shangri-La has revamped its meetings offering with the launch of the Events Collection, which provides planners greater flexibility as well as rich personalisation and experiential options.
Unique destination events, anchored in the community and curated by Shangri-La, are among the experiential elements organisers can incorporate into their meetings and events. These "Meetings with More" activities can be team building exercises or themed social activities that allow attendees to contribute to the local community as well as connect with each other.
"Our philosophy is simple -- we don't just help planners to organise events, we enable them to design their own experiences with the best of Shangri-La. We take care of the smallest details and deliver beautiful and personalised events which are engaging, polished and productive," said Taylor.
One of the key pillars of the Events Collection is flexibility. To enable planners to enhance their events with added Shangri-La services -- including everything from guestroom upgrades to airport transfers, coffee breaks to audio visual equipment -- an automatic three per cent event credit is provided. Furthermore, up to 50,000 Golden Circle Points can be redeemed instantly against the event cost, which is unique in the industry.
For information about the Shangri-La Events Collection, please visit www.shangri-la.com/EventsCollection. The site features a downloadable Events Collection brochure as well as detailed information on the programme and on unique destination events, including "Meetings with More" team building activities. To join Golden Circle, please visit www.goldencircle.shangri-La.com.
Shangri-La has also launched an Events Collection video, a platform on LinkedIn and a dedicated Instagram feed to share event and meetings inspiration from around the world.
Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, one of the world's premier hotel companies, currently owns and/or manages over 95 hotels under the Shangri-La brand with a room inventory of over 39,000. Over four decades the group has established its brand hallmark of 'hospitality from the heart.' The group has a substantial development pipeline with upcoming projects in mainland China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka. For more information and reservations, please contact a travel professional or access the website at www.shangri-la.com.
For digitised pictures of the group's hotels, please go to www.shangri-la.com/imagelibrary.
