Malta has for the second year running received the nod from the UK’s conference and incentive travel industry by winning four silvers at the trade’s prestigious Eventia International Awards.

The annual awards, organised in association with Conference and Incentive Travel Magazine, honour outstanding business-to-business and business-to-consumer events, meetings and conferences held outside the UK.

Allergan’s EMEA sales conference in Malta in January 2008 won silver for Best Promotional Communication, Most Creative Use of a Destination, Best Conference (Short Haul) and Best Event Demonstrating Corporate Social Responsibility.

The five-day conference was organised by World Events agency and handled locally by AGL Alliance Group Ltd. It brought to Malta 765 delegates from 10 countries and combined reward, motivation and communication objectives. The delegates stayed at various hotels including Hilton Malta, Corinthia San Gorg and Intercontinental Malta. The main meeting was held at the Hilton Conference Centre.

Apart from participating in 11 social activities and 30 team dinners, including a spectacular gala finale at the Eden Ice Arena, the delegates split into 35 teams and followed a specially designed version of Monopoly, travelling across Malta renovating nine properties including an orphanage, a children’s home and a disabilities leisure centre. Run in conjunction with the Maltese government, Allergan’s innovative CSR enterprise set the platform for an ongoing fundraising initiative.

Commenting on the awards, Marieanne Barthet Brown, MTA senior marketing manager MICE for the UK and Irish markets said: “In recent years Malta has gone from strength to strength establishing itself as the destination of choice among UK conference and events organisers. The UK MICE market is a very important one for Malta accounting for around 18 per cent of all delegate arrivals. This year the MTO in London is continuing with an aggressive promotional campaign aimed directly at the trade, hosting workshops and participating in specialist travel trade fairs.”

This is the second consecutive year that Eventia International Awards have been presented to conferences handled by AGL Alliance Group Ltd.

The Malta Tourism Authority sponsored the award for Best Use of Logistics which was won by the agency Line Up for producing the global dealer launch of the VolvoXC60 car. MTA chairman Sam Mifsud presented the award to the winners during the awards ceremony held in London last month.