a recent trip to learn more about meetings in Hong Kong — was like taking a trip back in time to old-fashioned luxury and leisureliness. When I arrived, the lobby was packed with tourists lined up for the hotel’s famous afternoon tea. The 300-room Peninsula has meeting space for up to 150 people theater-style or up to 300 for a cocktail reception. Our group sipped lavender-flavored cocktails while watching the city’s nightly colored light show from Felix, The Peninsula’s 28th-floor restaurant (which seats up to 110), then slipped downstairs for Peking duck at Spring Moon, an old-school, white-glove Cantonese restaurant with seating for 246. I took one of The Peninsula’s famed Phan-
Hong Kong Means Business
W
HEN YOU MEET IN HONG KONG, THE world is your oyster. That’s what I found myself thinking when I got a
good look at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from my window at The Peninsula hotel, which faces the HKCEC from across Victoria Harbour. The center’s shape resembles an oyster shell — perhaps a reference to Hong Kong’s location at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, where fishermen have cultivated the prized mollusks for hundreds of years. The HKCEC hosts more than 45 international exhibitions every year, including many of the world’s largest trade fairs. And no wonder: With six exhibition halls (almost 575,000 square feet), two convention halls (seating up to 6,100 people), two theaters (seating up to 1,000), 52 meeting rooms (64,000 square feet), and more than 64,000 square feet of prefunction space, the HKCEC can handle up to 140,000 visitors. Going from the hyper-modern HKCEC to The Peninsula — one of my two host hotels on
22 pcma convene June 2011
tom limousines to my other host hotel, the Four Seasons (399 rooms, with 21,250 square feet of meeting space). The hotel is in the Central District, an ideal location for groups because it’s within walking distance of Hong Kong’s state-of- the-art train station. Not only is the airport just a 23-minute ride away, with trains leaving every 12 minutes, travelers also can check in for flights at the station. The morning of their departure, your attendees could go there to pick up their board- ing passes and check their luggage, then return to the hotel for the rest of the meeting program. There’s plenty to do in the neighborhood
PEARLS: The 300-room Peninsula hotel (above) faces the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibi- tion Centre (top) across Victoria Harbour. With the Peninsula’s shop- ping arcade, spa, and numerous bars and res- taurants, attendees will be hard-pressed to leave the property.
around the Four Seasons: antiques shopping on Hollywood Road; people-watching in the cafés and bars of the SoHo district; foot massages (a good idea after walking Hong Kong’s hilly streets) at Happy Foot Reflexology Center. After all that exploring, I was happy to return to the hotel for dinner at Lung King Heen (with indoor seating for up to 128), whose head chef was the first Chinese chef to receive three Michelin stars. I savored sweet-and-sour stir-fried prawns and bok choy with garlic while looking down on the glittering harbor and pondering what I would do tomorrow. Maybe a swim in the Four Seasons’ infinity-edge pool, followed by a trip on the world’s longest covered escalator, which zigzags past bars and shops, rising over 400 feet to take riders to the chic Mid-levels neighborhood, with its panoramic views of the city. Like I said: When you meet in Hong Kong, the world is your oyster. n