Why your next event should be in Alice Springs (Mparntwe)
In Alice Springs, culture, cultivars and enlightening encounters combine to create a unique and engaging experience found nowhere else in Australia.
Although the luxury of finer things—materialism and fancy fixtures—occurs in spades throughout the region, a visit to Alice Springs solely for canapes and convention spaces would sell the region short of its potential.
On The Nibbler’s latest visit to the Red Centre, it became apparent that Alice Springs offers a very different kind of luxury: a luxury of culture.
Defined event and resort spaces like Crowne Plaza Alice Springs Lasseters, DoubleTree by Hilton, and Mercure Alice Springs Resort provide double opportunities for convenience and comfort, while each offering small to medium sized venues.
But what is and will be truly valuable to your delegates during an event schedule, is the hospitality and tradition of Alice Springs, of the Arrernte people and their mythology.
A trip to Mparntwe (the Arrernte name for the region) is best experienced with open eyes and ears, while the best itineraries should aim to experience the arts and cultures of the region.
A visit to the Alice Springs Desert Park, which hosts native ingredient talk-and-tastes some 15 or so minutes from the city centre, illustrates how close this phenomenon is to everyday life and how the local Arrernte people thrived in desert conditions.
For a truly magical experience that will make you light up from the inside-out, coincide your event with Parrtjima: A Festival in Light—the only authentic First Nations festival of its kind—which is annually hosted in the Desert Park by night.
Combine that with a truly inspiring visit to Purple House, an Aboriginal community-controlled health service, providing mobile dialysis services to remote First Nations people in Central Australia.
Remote Indigenous people in Central Australia are up to 30 times more likely to suffer from kidney disease than other Australians.
Hearing about Purple House’s history as an Indigenous Australian art establishment, opened by the grace of a Walungurru (Kintore) and Kiwirrkurra collaborative paintings project that auctioned for more than $1 million, is also a touching and heart-warming lesson.
As a base for conferences, the Alice Springs Convention Centre offers the largest event spaces in the region, with its nearly 1,176 square-metre MacDonnell room capable of seating 1,200 people in a theatre arrangement.
Further orientations include a classroom (seating 747), banquet (600 to 750), cabaret (600) and cocktail (1200) arrangement, while the room can also be divided into three sections.
“A conference in Alice Springs offers a once-in-a-lifetime experience for delegates,” Stewart Manson general manager for Crowne Plaza Alice Springs and Alice Springs Convention Centre said.
“There are so many rich experiences here. The cultural engagement and corporate, social responsibility opportunities are huge.”
“Everywhere has their unique key attractions. I really do think that [Alice Springs] is on every delegates bucket-list … we’re trying to make Alice Springs a regular feature of people’s rotations on their conferences,” Manson said.
Although fixtures and sites are on offer for events, you should consider transferring seaside for ochre on your next convention for an authenticity of culture, hospitality, tradition, and First Nations country and language.
Truly, one feels smaller, humbler, for having visited Alice Springs, with the ever-present MacDonnell ranges and desert surrounding Alice Springs, along with the mythology surrounding these regions.
Never before in modern Australian history has the importance of diversity and representation, in the forms of gender, culture, sexuality and race been more important in our everyday lives.
This extends to the relationships workplaces facilitate in their staff, and the cultures companies nurture within their walls.
These are qualities that a trip to Alice Springs, along with an inspiring, top-end event, could help to facilitate.
Latest News
Collette goes off the beaten track with Canyon Country tour
To be clear TW is not advocating actually walking off the beaten track. Avoid the coyotes. Stay on the beaten track.
Intrepid & Korean Tourism Organisation team up to give agents a cooking masterclass
These guys learnt that Korean cooking is more than just putting kimchi on 2-minute noodles (as we once thought).
Winner, winner! Intrepid reveals the 9 lucky agents that won $2k
Who won the incentive? Which Intrepid trip will they spend it on? What day of the week is it again? Where am I? Huh?
Corporate Traveller reports 42% increase in Easter traffic this year
Business travellers just love Easter! Expect plenty of chocolate stained documents returning to the office on Tuesday.
Turbulent year wiped $384m off Qantas brand value: Report
Meanwhile, eating tuna at your desk can damage your own personal office brand value by several thousand dollars.
FAMIL: Room-Res & Singapore Tourism Board shows agents the Lion City’s roar
Click this article to see a man very impressed by a 20-layer chocolate cake. We're not kidding, he loved it!
Oceania Cruises offers sailors free pre-cruise hotel stay
Looking for ways to make your holidays as long as possible? Look no further.
Bonza launches new website to compliment app, agent portal
Does news about an airline's website fill you with ecstasy, glee and joy? Get your hit of the good stuff here.
MTA agents attends ‘Lunch ‘n’ Learn’ with AMA Waterways
When organising the event, Lunch 'n' Learn beat out Dinner 'n' Divulge and Breakfast 'n' Banter. Understandably so.
Travelmarvel reveals 2025 South America tours
If you spot any typos in the newsletter today it is because TW became distracted Googling images of Machu Picchu.
Tourists from 5 countries could be BANNED from visiting Australia
Anthony Albanese's immigration laws could impact tourism from certain countries.
Just how many passengers will Qantas & Jetstar hop around this Easter?
Airline workers are ready for gleeful Easter travellers! Also prepared for sticky children with chocolate on their face.
Air New Zealand gets ready for bumper Easter weekend
Air NZ gears up for travelling passengers this Easter, while TW looks to beat our egg eating record. 117 here we come!
Four Seasons Yachts reveals first itineraries to the Caribbean & Mediterranean
These trips look so good we wish there were five seasons! Alright, we'll see ourselves out...
FAMIL: Travellers Choice treats top agents to the wonders of Rotorua
This one's got plenty of famil pics and no one looks shockingly hungover in them! Clearly no TW staffers were there.
European Waterways celebrates 50th anniversary with week-long founders cruise
Plan on celebrating your 50th anniversary with a bottle of Moët and fairy bread? European Waterways has better ideas.
100th route! Jetstar celebrates the launch of Brisbane-Avalon with 12 hour sale
Jetstar knocks a ton and celebrates with a sale while TW once scored a ton and celebrated with about 17 beers.
Record-breaking year for NSW as visitor expenditure soars past $50 billion
Enjoy running round the Opera House? Be prepared to elbow even more tourists out the way.
Norwegian Cruise Line makes play for solo travellers
NCL ensuring you don't have to go trawling Tinder to find a cruise partner. Thank goodness, we were sick of catfishing.
Entire Travel Group’s Canada and Europe 2024/25 brochures are out now
Entire's new brochure is bittersweet; it both informs your clients and makes you envious of the holiday they'll take.
Malaysia Airlines adds 3 new destinations & A330neo seats
More seats means cheaper airfares and more money to spend on overpriced airport sandwiches. Woohoo!
Two divine days onboard Crystal Serenity
It's only pure serenity onboard this ship. Anxiety, agitation and anguish have been rejected by the bouncer.
How the Globus Family of Brands elevates coach touring: Travel Weekly TV with Chris Fundell
Chris' here so you don't think coaches mean peeling your thighs off a sticky leather seat every time you stand up!
The Flight Centre Foundation gears up for massive 2024 with 3 new board members
The foundation looks to invest $200k this year, spurring the TW journos to figure out how to qualify as a charity.
Barking Owl Communications to head up Anantara & Avani in ANZ
Fellow PR competitors had been barking up the wrong tree even thinking of bidding for this job!
Amex GBT to purchase CWT for $871m
It's big deals like this that get a firm handshake - hence the sore hands over at the CWT and Amex GBT offices.
1000MTG’s second global conference reminds agents to ‘strive and thrive’
Alongside messages to 'strive' and 'thrive' were those to 'survive', 'drive', 'arrive' and 'jive' (when appropriate).
Qantas A330 makes “loud bang”, pilots forced to shut down one engine
Qantas refusing to let Boeing have all the headlines in aviation world today!
GX Community Tourism Summit 2024 location revealed!
The new location has arrived and it'll blow your socks off! Time for another trip to Target for more socks then.
Visiting the destination my Mum didn’t want me to
Yet again, this journo has been a stress to his mother. Discover how this trip spurred his mother's anxiety here.
Agents come out of their shells at P&O’s turtle hatchery event
For some, it's a few glasses of bubbles to lure them out of their shell. For these agents, it was a bit more literal.
Boeing cleanout: CEO, chair to go as safety crisis plagues the manufacturer
CEOs are falling thick and fast these days. We should have started up a bingo game with their headshots in the office.
Virgin looks to swap MAX 10 order for MAX 8s amid Boeing delays: Reports
Virgin has changed its order for something smaller. Much like we have to at Maccas following a worrying doctor's visit.
Club Med unveils newest luxury yacht for 2024/25 early bird sale
This yacht is preserved for the early birds! Night Owls may also get onboard depending how late they stay up.
Abercrombie & Kent 2024 Asia Portfolio is here
Round up the family and get planning an Asia jaunt. Or, if they're hard to handle, brush them all and go it alone!
Elevate your earnings: Final days to secure double commission with Inspiring Vacations’ March offer
What could inspire you to sell more Inspiring Vacations? Double commission of course! That's all the inspiration needed.