Hospitality and tourism was identified as one of the emerging industries in Singapore at a nationwide 24 Hours Business Plan Challenge organised by Start-Up @ Singapore.
The aim of the competition was to raise the awareness of emerging industries, including Cloud Computing and Social Enterprise/Co-operative, and help participants fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams.
More than 30 teams of entrepreneur aspirants, young and old, were brought together to participate in the 24 Hours Business Plan Challenge. This event was an appetizer to the annual mini-business plan competition – Start-Up @ Singapore Business Plan Competition.
Over the course of this highly intensive 2-day event, participants were exposed to various business opportunities that the identified emerging industries have to offer.
Speakers from each emerging industry were invited to deliver informative talks on their respective fields. Chia Tek Yew, Executive Director of Strategy and Marketing of Bintan Resorts International, represented the Hospitality and Tourism industry. Other speakers included Simone Brunozzi of Amazon Web Services, Prof Albert Teo of the Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Programme and Mike Chian of Singapore National Co-operative Federation.
Chia (right) shared the story of his start-up and gave tips on how he differentiated himself from his competitors.
He spoke on how Hospitality and Tourism is a very mature and saturated sector. For someone who came from an accounting background, he found it hard to start as an entrepreneur from scratch in the industry.
He, personally, leveraged on many significant partnerships to make his business as successful as it is now. One point made by Chia that resounded clearly with the audience was, “the key to success for any organization lies with its people”.
Two other skill-development workshops on idea generation and idea pitching were also conducted to help the participants with the art of writing a winning executive summary and delivering an engaging pitch.
Upon completion of the industry talks and workshops, teams had to choose to work within one of the categories (Hospitality & Tourism, Cloud Computing and Social Enterprise/Co-operative) to develop a business plan’s executive summary in 24 hours. They then had to present their ideas, on Day 2, to a panel of judges consisting of industry experts and venture capitalists. Winners of each category were awarded S$500 and granted direct entry into the Start-Up @ Singapore Business Plan Competition Semi-Finals.
Winners of the Hospitality and Tourism category, BizNinjas summed up the event as a “grueling but rewarding experience. We came for the experience and got a great one. It was challenging and grueling, but it has been a good learning and interactive experience overall.”
Vivek K S, Lead of the 13th Start-Up @ Singapore organizing team was unequivocal whilst stating that the intention of Start-Up @ Singapore was “to engage, inspire and educate all contestants on matters of enterprise and entrepreneurship”.
Now into it’s 13th installment, Start-Up @ Singapore, the country’s largest business plan competition, has started to call for submission for their main event, Start-Up @ Singapore Business Plan Competition. Based on the submissions received in the 2011 competition, 29% of entries were of business plans for the Hospitality & Tourism industry, with capsule hotels being a popular idea submitted.
Closing date for the online submission of a 3-page Executive Summary for the Preliminary Round was Feb 4, 2012. This year’s competition will run till May 19, where teams in the Finals will pitch their full business plan presentation to the judges.
