Sarawak gathers its BE tribe to focus on new strategy to boost events and their legacy

Business Events Sarawak (BESarawak) held a first industry event of the year, a Tribal Gathering, in the coastal city of Miri recently, to reveal strategies and tactics for business events in this part of Malaysia in 2022. The Tribal Gathering also celebrated the recovery of the region’s business events industry and pointed to a new direction and strategies expected to boost Sarawak’s destination appeal. The gathering heard that eight focus areas had been identified to accelerate economic recovery, enhance brand awareness, improve local industry standards and support to business events organisers. The eight key areas are: Destination branding & marketing, Destination development, Business development, Capacity building, Data development & digitalisation, Stakeholder collaboration, Financial support and Good governance. Legacy impact remains at the heart of BESarawak’s strategy and Sarawak’s deputy minister of tourism, Datuk Sebastian Ting, explained that the new strategic planning “combines the aspirations of the local business events and tourism sector, the national agenda for economic impact and BESarawak’s vision for higher purpose events that bring both economic and legacy impact.” BESarawak has formulated a series of activities for each of Sarawak’s business events cities and Miri is getting ready to host familiarisation trips and workshops for promoting the city to organisers. More corporate social responsibility programmes can be expected and BESarawak aims to secure RM93.7m (US$22.29m) in total economic impact for Miri with the support of local industry partners during 2022. Approximately RM50m is expected from delegate expenses and RM5.6m from tax revenues and at least 7,345 long and short-term job opportunities should be generated for the local community. Statewide strategies for the two business events segments — Conventions and exhibitions, Corporate Meetings & Corporate Incentives — have also been announced by BESarawak’s CEO, Amelia Roziman. Besides legacy, the Conventions and exhibitions strategies focused on Sarawak’s response to the pandemic, nurturing homegrown events and strengthening relationships between industry partners and organisers. Under the Corporate Meetings & Corporate Incentives segment, BESarawak is applying a blueprint to promote Sarawak as an incentive travel destination. “Ongoing research and development… are enabling us to explore new and imaginative ways to create experiences for the right audience. This includes developing new business events products and packages, and revamping existing ones,” Roziman noted. Tribal Gathering also revealed plans to organise roadshows and networking events around Malaysia and bridge the engagement gaps with various local and national stakeholders. Plans are also underway to collaborate with international agencies to raise awareness on Sarawak as a business events destination. Meanwhile, activities to develop the local industry are also amplified under BESarawak’s education platform, TriBE Digital Campus. For more information, contact Rose Bruce at rose@sarawakcb.com