MALAYSIA – The growth of the Malaysian province Sarawak’s MICE business and celebrating the individuals involved was at the centre of the annual Anak Sarawak Appreciation Award (ASAA) in Kuching recently.
The ceremony this year was held at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) and themed as ‘Sarawak Hornbill Festival’. The venue’s Great Hall was transformed to a traditional village scene and a traditional folklore sprung to life to give guests a taste of Sarawak.
YB Dato’ Joseph Salang Gandum, the Deputy Minister of Information, Communications and Culture, told the category winners that they would be the driving force behind the development of Sarawak’s business events industry.
“The bureau has successfully positioned Sarawak on the global map; it is up to you in the industry to propel it further,” the Deputy Minister said.
Since 2006, the SCB has supported 215 convention bids representing 97,507 delegates and 362,745 delegate days, which contributed an estimated direct delegate expenditure of RM222m (US$72.5m) to the local economy.
In 2012, the SCB achieved 37 out of 45 targeted bid wins.
Mike Cannon, Managing Director of SCB, added: “We’ve come a long way and all our team and industry members are committed to giving their full support to ensure our client’s meetings are a success.”
Five scholarships from the International Association Convention Scholarship Award, now in its fourth year, were also announced by Cannon. Each is valued at RM10,000, and covers travel, accommodation, association membership and convention registration fees to enable association leaders to attend an international convention of their choice.
“It is important for Sarawak to develop its own association base with active members,” Cannon added.
Award winners (pictured) for 2012 were: Dr Ong Puay Hoon, President of the Dyslexia Association of Sarawak; Dr Ting Choo Yee, Associate Professor at the Multimedia University (MMU); Kang Chia Yang, Lecturer at PoliteknikMukah Sarawak; Joseph Ramanair, Senior Lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Dr Khong Heng Yen, Senior Lecturer at Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak (UiTM).
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