From the left: Hii Chang Kee, Permanent Secretary – Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak; Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak; The Right Honourable Datuk Patinggi (Dr.) Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari bin Tun Datuk Abang Haji Openg, James Rees, President of ICCA; Amelia Roziman, CEO of BESarawak
8 November 2021 – Kuching, Sarawak: Sarawak’s Chief Minister, The Right Honourable Datuk Patinggi (Dr.) Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari bin Tun Datuk Abang Haji Openg, announces the Sarawak Government’s support towards convention legacies as one of the key strategies to help achieve the Post Covid Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030 goals during the virtual industry session, The Rising Impact of Business Events – TRIBE.
TRIBE, hosted by Business Events Sarawak (BESarawak) in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak (MTAC), International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA), The Iceberg – Legacies of Business Events, and GainingEdge, introduces the business events industry on how Sarawak’s business events industry is forging a strong collaboration with the government sector to achieve its goals.
Convention legacies – best known as legacy impacts – are the long term, positive effects that are left behind by conventions. Legacy impacts take place in five core areas namely sectoral, economic, environmental, community and social, and political. Concurrent with the session is the unveiling of Sarawak’s legacy planning guideline called Business Events Sarawak Legacy (BESLegacy) Initiative, where business event planners can strategically design their convention activities to achieve their legacy outcomes.
In his ‘Tribal Wisdom’ session on TRIBE, Sarawak’s Chief Minister states that the Sarawak Government had recently formulated the Post Covid Development Strategy 2030 to recalibrate the destination’s development and achieve economic prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. “We included business events into this strategy because that is how serious we are about events flourishing here in Sarawak. With the BESLegacy Initiative, we can balance people, profit, purpose, and planet together. It is the strongest collaboration between the Government and convention planners because of how compelling value creation is”.
Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak, The Honourable Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, gives a short sharing on how Sarawak is resurrecting the business events industry. “The value of business events is more than meets the eye,” says the Minister. “Malaysia as a nation, and Sarawak as its largest state, is among the region’s most active hosts. I would like to invite all convention planners and partners to collaborate with us and my ministry will support you all the way.”
Meanwhile, BESarawak’s CEO Amelia Roziman commented, “in a rapidly changing business environment where stakeholders such as associations and governments are more determined to reap greater returns on investment, Sarawak is placing top priority on designing conventions as economic and social changemakers. We have incentivised packages offering financial and in-kind incentives to support your conventions’ initiative.”
The BESLegacy Initiative is a joint effort between the Sarawak Government and the business events industry to align conventions with Sarawak’s 13 Key Priority Areas and United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
