Trade only: agencies, tour operators, OTAs and MICE planners
Embassy Alliance has run a trade-only DMC in Singapore since 2005. Our Singapore CBD team at 50 Raffles Place holds the hotel blocks, coach orders and guide roster in its own name, and your agency sells the programme as its own. Briefs are read in English or Russian and get a first answer within one business day.
A destination management company is the licensed local business that signs for a programme’s ground services and answers for them. In Singapore that means the hotel block, the coach order, the guide roster and the Changi handling are contracted to us, while your agency keeps the client, the price and the brand.
Every Singapore programme rests on signed paper, and whoever signs it carries it. When an exhibition week takes the hotels, finding the beds again is our problem and not yours. The voucher your client carries has your logo on it. The liability behind it is ours.
The licences sit here, not with a handler further down the chain: a registered Singapore inbound operator on this side and a MOTAC travel agency licence on the Malaysian side, numbers on request. Two offices work one file, Raffles Place for the Singapore ground and Kuala Lumpur for a twin-centre leg, so a two-country programme needs no second contract. Our books are trade only, rates are net and confidential, quoting can go out white-label, and one named account manager runs the file to one invoice.
Signed and run by us
Stays entirely yours
A DMC arranges the destination side of a programme: hotels, transport, guides, venues and social events. A PCO, or professional congress organiser, runs the congress itself: registration, programme content, abstracts, sponsors and exhibition. Large conferences often use both, with the PCO running the event and the DMC running the city around it.
| Compared on | DMC (destination management company) | PCO (professional congress organiser) | Tour operator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core job | Destination logistics: rooms, coaches, guides, venues, gala nights | The congress itself: registration, programme, abstracts, sponsorship, exhibition | Packaging and selling trips |
| Typically hired by | Agencies, tour operators and corporate planners | Associations and organising committees | Travellers and agencies |
| Supplier contracts in the destination | Signed in its own name | Signed for the congress services it manages | Signed for its own packages |
| Where its work ends | When the group leaves the country | When the congress closes | When the trip ends |
| Where we fit | This page: trade-only ground partner | We do not run congress content | See Tour Operator in Singapore |
For corporate meetings, incentives and exhibitions, the delivery side sits on our MICE agent and operator in Singapore page.
A brief to a DMC in Singapore rarely sits on one desk alone, so these eight are quoted together and closed on one invoice: hotel contracting by district, Changi and cruise arrivals, guides, MICE delivery, restaurant booking, VIP fast-track, transport dispatch and a 24/7 duty desk.
Blocks are held by district: Marina Bay and the CBD for a conference base, Orchard Road for retail-led stays, Sentosa for a resort footprint. Whoever signs the hotel contract carries the risk on it, which is the first question to ask any operator.
Contracted hotelsOur staff stand in every Changi arrival hall, T1 through T4, and at Jewel, with a name board at each. Ship calls are covered the same way at both cruise centres. We watch the inbound, so a late landing is re-staffed before the guest reaches the hall.
Routes and vehiclesLicensed guides, carried on our own staff list. The brief sets who takes the day: the language, the head count, and whether it is a walking day in the heritage quarters or a Sentosa day.
Day programmesVenue sourcing and site inspections across Marina Bay Sands Expo, Suntec, Singapore EXPO and Raffles City, with the Flower Dome, CHIJMES or the Sentosa beachfront for the gala night. Registration, arrival sequencing and team building are ours as well.
MICE and eventsThree requests make up most of this desk: a whole group seated at one sitting, a closed room for a dinner the client does not want overheard, and somewhere to stand the group with a drink on the first evening.
Where we bookFast-track at Changi on arrival and departure, in three tiers, with the upper two routed through the private CIP terminal. The liaison who meets the guest is our own employee.
Tiers and ratesPremium sedans, MPVs and 7-seat vans for individual arrivals, 20 to 45 seat coaches for groups, all dispatched by the desk that quoted them. Group movements run from 100 up to 3,000 passengers, staged in waves.
Fleet and ratesFor the hours when the programme stops matching the paperwork: an inbound lands elsewhere, a guest needs a hospital, a race weekend closes a road. The rebuilt day goes back to the agency in writing while the group is still in the vehicle.
Two offices work one file. Our Singapore desk at Singapore Land Tower, 50 Raffles Place, runs the island days. Our Kuala Lumpur head office runs the Malaysian days and the twin-centre legs. We book the move between them, and you receive one invoice.
Each Singapore page answers one kind of request. A room rate, a vehicle class, a visa file and a conference floor are four separate jobs. Contracting and trade terms stay here, because that is the part a DMC in Singapore owns. If a brief sits across several, send it to the desk and we route it.
Six districts, one operations desk at Raffles Place, and only Sentosa needs a crossing. Nothing is far from anything else, so a programme is built around where the room block and the venue sit and not around travel time.
Marina Bay and the CBDConference and incentive groups are housed here when the sessions are at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre or Suntec Singapore, both inside the district. In F1 week we plan around the street-circuit road closures, which cut the approaches a coach needs.
Orchard RoadThis is where a group with several room categories on one list gets housed, and a free afternoon here costs nothing in transport. Boarding happens on the side streets rather than the main stretch, so we fix one pickup point and keep it for the whole programme.
SentosaThe answer when the brief wants the group in one place: rooms, meeting space, the activity day and the closing dinner all sit inside one resort footprint, so nobody changes hotel mid-programme. Access is by causeway, cable car or the Sentosa Express, so the arrival route is picked to suit coach size and the number of waves.
The Civic DistrictRaffles City Convention Centre sits here, and CHIJMES is what we book when a dinner wants a building rather than a ballroom. The sites are close enough together that a delegation walks between them with a guide instead of boarding a coach.
The heritage quarters (Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam)This is where a half day on foot goes: one licensed guide, one drop-off point, and the rest of it walked. It fits between a morning session and an evening event, in English or Russian.
Changi and JewelMeet and greet covers all four terminals and the Jewel complex, name board as standard, and the liaison staff are ours rather than a subcontractor’s. The run into the city takes about 20 minutes by car, which lets us sell a long layover instead of writing it off.Eight answers an agency needs before briefing a DMC in Singapore. Anything beyond them goes in the brief and the desk answers it.
None of this is a quote. It is the ground we work on; show times and site entry rules sit on our Singapore and attractions pages.
Singapore, SG
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City-wide events and exhibition weeks
Blocks tighten: J, F, A, S, O, N, D
Blocks tightenNormal booking window
Rainfall through the year
Wetter run: J, N, D
Wetter runSlightly drier
Singapore has no closed season, so the question is not the right month but the right week: the top row shows where demand tightens and the lower one shows the wetter months. With the dates in hand, the desk reports the room position first and costs the programme after.
Indicative seasonsThe Formula 1 night race, held in late September or early October, closes roads around the Marina Bay street circuit and takes city hotel stock early. Rooms for it come out of allocations held under standing contracts, and every transfer time changes on race weekend, so settle dates, rooms and vehicle routing when the booking is made and not in race week.
| Event | Usual timing | What it does to a brief |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese New Year | January or February | Hotel stock tightens early |
| Singapore Airshow | February of even years | Hotel stock tightens early |
| National Day | 9 August | Hotel stock tightens early |
| Formula 1 night race | Late September or early October | Road closures at Marina Bay, transfer times change, rooms go early |
| Deepavali | Follows the festival calendar | Behaves like the other festive weeks |
| Festive weeks | The last week of December | Hotel availability compresses |
| Exhibition weeks at Marina Bay Sands and Suntec | Through the year | One large exhibition compresses availability across the city |
Send your company registration and the licence or association number your agency trades under. Verification happens once, at company level, and then you receive a named account manager and an agent portal login.
Verification sits at company level, so the second file and the twentieth need no new paperwork. Back comes a named account manager and a login to the agent portal.
A file opens on the dates, the head count and the standard of hotel. The first written reply is within one business day, costed line by line on net rates, so you set the selling price before your client sees a number.
Your written confirmation turns the allocation firm and puts our name on the hotel, vehicle and guide contracts, so the supplier risk sits with us and not with you. Everything the client sees goes out under your brand, and the payment schedule and cancellation dates are in the confirmation itself.
Once the group lands, the file stays with our inbound Singapore operations desk and does not change hands. A name change, a late landing at Changi, a pickup re-timed around a road closure: outside your office hours the call is made here and reported to you afterwards.
| Term | How it works |
|---|---|
| Rates | Net and confidential, on request, or live in the agent portal |
| Quoting | White-label if you want it |
| Account | One named account manager per file |
| Invoice | One invoice per file |
| First reply | Within one business day |
| Minimum group size | No published floor. FIT and group briefs both come through this desk. |
Three shapes cover most of them: a stopover between flights, a corporate week, or Singapore with a Malaysian leg attached. A DMC in Singapore prices each against the dates first, because the event calendar sets what a hotel block costs before anything else does.
One hotel, one guided half day and one evening, built backwards from the onward departure time. Late checkout is held where the flight needs it, and the airport handling at both ends is our own staff. If the gap is under a day, the whole thing stays in one district and the group does not move twice.
Agencies routing long-haul clients through ChangiVenue sourcing and a site inspection first, then the room block is held against the names as they come in, and arrivals are sequenced across the Changi terminals. Coach movements scale from 100 up to 3,000 passengers, and the gala goes into the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay, CHIJMES or the Sentosa beachfront depending on headcount. A coordinator stays on site for the whole programme.
MICE planners and corporate event ownersThe Singapore days run from the Raffles Place desk, the Malaysian days from the head office in Kuala Lumpur, and it all stays on one file with one invoice. The Johor day is timed by the checkpoint queues, so it is quoted rather than dropped into the day and hoped for. Kuala Lumpur, Desaru and Langkawi pair the same way.
Tour operators selling a two-country routingNone of the three is a product. Send the dates, the head count and the job the group has to do, and we quote the file that week’s calendar actually allows. Rates come back net, on request.
Singapore is easy to book and harder to run to a schedule. An agency buys five things from a DMC in Singapore: the contracting, the staff, the resale terms, the clock and a room in the weeks the city is full.
One signature covers the whole ground programme: the room block, the vehicles, the licensed guides, the entrances and the meet and greet at Changi. The supplier contracts behind it are ours, so your finance team sets up one counterparty in Singapore and checks one set of payment details.
Guides, drivers and the Changi fast-track liaison are our own staff, licensed and insured. A replacement is an internal matter: the shift moves to another of our licensed staff, briefed by us. One employer answers for conduct and licensing, including when a complaint arrives after the programme has ended.
Net rates are on request, held in the agent portal, with white-label documentation over them. Your selling price, your brand and your client list stay on your side of the file.
A request that leaves a European desk at the end of the afternoon lands here at the start of the next working day, so an overnight amendment is settled before your office opens. While your clients travel, the Singapore hours are covered by somebody at a desk and not by an answering machine.
The Grand Prix night race, the Airshow, Chinese New Year, National Day and the big exhibition weeks at Marina Bay Sands and Suntec take the hotels out of the market early. Our rooms come out of allocation held under standing contracts, not out of what is left on the public sites.
Three notes from people who have put groups in our hands, printed as written. We do not name the companies: most would rather not advertise who handles their arrivals.
A huge thank you for the peace of mind we have whenever we entrust our groups to you, whether it is 90 people or 20. We appreciate the efficiency with which you coordinate tours, arrivals and hotel check-ins.
Sincere gratitude for the exceptionally well-organized trip to Malaysia and Singapore for our group of construction professionals from the Moscow Region. The thoughtful itinerary, carefully selected hotels and wonderful stay on Langkawi Island made it an unforgettable experience.
We joined a private sightseeing tour of Kuala Lumpur by car with an amazing guide, Natalia. The format was so convenient, we saw the Petronas Twin Towers, Merdeka Square, the historic center and Batu Caves without ever feeling rushed.
Ten questions the partner desk at Raffles Place gets before a first booking, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
It signs for the ground and then answers for it. From abroad you can book a room and a car. What you cannot do is hold a hotel allotment, put a licensed guide on a roster, or stand in Changi arrivals when the flight lands two hours late. Hotels, vehicles and venues are contracted on our paper, so an unsold block or a no-show guest is our bill and not your client’s, and on the day a duty desk in the city has your manifest in front of it.
The ground operator. A brief sent to this desk is contracted, staffed and run in our name for your agency, and your paperwork is what the traveller ends up holding. The programmes we build and sell under our own name are a different business, written for the traveller, with their own page. Note it in the brief if a file needs both, and one account manager still carries it.
Start with the legal name, not the logo. A licence is issued to a company, and a brand can be put on any website. In Singapore we are a registered inbound operator. On the Malaysian side we hold a MOTAC travel agency licence. The partner desk sends the licence numbers on request. The MATTA member record is public on the association’s own site. We also hold SATA and IATA filings and public liability insurance, which the partner desk evidences on request.
Rates are net, quoted to the agency and never to the traveller. You set your own margin and we do not see it. There is no fixed card to read a figure off, because hotel contracts and vehicle costs sit on the calendar, so each brief is costed on its own dates and rates are on request. The account is opened once, against the company rather than the enquiry. Partners with a portal login read live net rates there instead of waiting for an email.
Your paperwork. Itineraries, vouchers and rooming lists come back white-label, so your logo and your phone number go on them before anything reaches the traveller. The guide and the driver work to your programme and hand out no cards of their own. The price goes to you, and your client is yours to price to.
Nothing gets written off. The duty desk changes the order of the day, tells the hotel, and puts the guide and the car on the new timings. Because we hold the hotel contract and the staff roster, the fix is an internal decision. Changi to Marina Bay is about 20 minutes by road, so a late landing usually costs one stop and not the whole day. The desk runs on Singapore time, UTC+8, so an overnight amendment is settled here and reaches you in the morning as a fact and not a question.
As soon as you have them, because on those dates hotel stock is the constraint. The Formula 1 night race in late September or early October closes roads around the Marina Bay street circuit and takes city hotel stock early. The Singapore Airshow does the same in February of an even year. Chinese New Year, National Day on 9 August, Deepavali and the last week of December behave alike. A costed answer comes back inside one business day.
Yes, and it does not split into two bookings. The Singapore office covers the island days, the Kuala Lumpur head office covers the Malaysian ones, and the move between them is booked by us, by air or over the land border at Johor. Billing stays on the account you already deal with. A cross-border drive is timed around the checkpoints. Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Desaru and Langkawi pair with Singapore on the same paperwork and the same account manager.
There is no published floor. Both FIT and group work come through this desk, and each brief is costed as its own programme. A couple on a stopover and a conference arrival follow the same route: dates, numbers, and what has to happen on the ground. Size is a question of fleet and not of acceptance, and coach movements run from around a hundred passengers up to three thousand.
A DMC delivers the destination side of a programme: hotels, transport, guides, venues and social events. A PCO runs the congress itself: registration, programme content, abstracts, sponsorship and exhibition. Large conferences often use both.
A first brief needs three things: the dates, the numbers, and what the programme has to achieve on the ground. Someone answers inside one business day, and it is the manager who will own the file, in English or Russian. Net rates come on request, or a portal login lets you price the brief and send it yourself. As a DMC in Singapore we work the same file as the Kuala Lumpur head office, so a two-country programme does not need a second conversation.
Contracting, Changi and cruise arrivals, and the duty desk for the Singapore days.
Accounts, the Malaysian ground, and the twin-centre legs to Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Desaru and Langkawi.
Send the brief and the DMC in Singapore comes back with a programme and net rates within one business day.
