Sarawak’s selling point: Good old-fashion adventure
“It’s BIG business — For a lot of reasons”
Amelia Roziman
Globally, MICE activities generate tens of billions annually in any currency.
But this has even more meaning at the local level, when comparing delegate spending with that associated with other types of travellers.
While this varies in different parts of the world, it is typical that convention delegates generate fi ve to six times the average per capita spending compared with leisure visitors.
An exclusive interview carried out with SCB global marketing and communications director Amelia Roziman revealed that, since 2006, the bureau had supported 193 convention bids representing 87,809 delegates, and 325,840 delegate days, which contributed an estimated direct delegate expenditure of RM203,251,427 to Sarawak.
In 2011 alone, SCB managed to support 56 convention bids representing 25,555 delegates, and 96,653 delegate days with an estimated direct delegate expenditure of RM59,260,428 to the state.
“So, you see it is big business for a lot of reasons.
Sarawak has come far in muscling its way into the business events industry, challenging many more well established destinations and cities for a piece of the business,” she said.
Going forward, SCB has set its target sales of 45 bid wins in 2012.
Going down the road in the next three years, it estimated to win 135 conferences with more than 81,000 delegates and direct delegate expenditure of RM249 million.
International business events direct expenditure for 2012 was estimated at RM55.3 million with average conventions length of 3.9 days.
The average spending per trip for the delegates was estimated at RM3,075 per pax.
Confirming SCB’s confidence to achieve its goal, Roziman said bid success rate had been steadily increasing year on year – from 61 per cent in 2009, up to 80 per cent in 2011.
“Our selling point is always the Sarawak old-fashioned adventure.
Leveraging on the Borneo brand, Sarawak is the land of charm and romance, of history and culture; unsullied by modern trappings yet able to marry the best of technology with its wild soul.
It’s tempting for those international conference organisers,” she stressed.
The economic value of business events does not lie just on the impact of delegates spending but also down the supply chain such to the destination management companies, exhibitions management companies, event management companies and professional congress organisers.
According to National Business Events Study (NBES), for every RM192,450 in economic value generated by business events, there was one full time equivalent job created.
An estimated 46 per cent of international delegates would extend their stay for pre and post travel, providing benefits to regional communities and an estimated 25 per cent had an accompanying partner/ spouse with them whenever they come for conferences.
“These are the hidden values of business events for the industry,” Roziman highlighted.
Industry statistics showed that Malaysia was ranked 29th in 2011 globally and seventh in Asia Pacific.
Meanwhile, Sarawak (Kuching) was ranked 42nd in 2010 among the Asia Pacific City Ranking.
The numbers were extracted from International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Rankings 2010 and 2011.
For the case of Sarawak, international conventions would get an extra add-on support if it choose the state as its MICE destination.
“These are the advantages as we are the only state that has a dedicated bureau in the country,” she added.
With the inception of Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) in 2009, SCB had recorded a jump in its bid wins.
To date, the national bureau had supported 34 conventions from Sarawak with more than 15 bid sharings.
“International conventions will get support from both bureaus (MyCEB and SCB) and as for national local conventions, they will only receive support from SCB.
The more MyCEB support us, the more bid wins we get, it will contribute to the increment of Malaysia’s number of bid wins,” Roziman explained.
On researching BizHive Weekly noticed ‘conflicting’ conference statistics data from SCB – bid wins reported from 2006 to 2010 showed that 45 conventions that were held here were national while 96 were international conventions.
Roziman agreed that it was rather unusual for other bureaus around the world as normally the national convention bids would be higher than the international convention bids.
“It seems that our Peninsular based organisers prefer to travel outside Malaysia if they need to take a flight to attend a convention,” she commented.
When questioned on the efforts and steps taken to increase the national participation in Sarawak, SCB’s Cannon replied by saying there were product cycles for business events too.
“In 2010, we had more international convetions while in 2011, we had more national than international conventions.
For 2012, it looks like international and national conventions will be on par with each other.
“National conventions are slowly picking up because we have grown mature. Sarawak has gone beyond what most new destinations achieve,” he added.
He revealed that one of the biggest untapped potential sources of MICE business for Sarawak is Peninsular Malaysia.
Currently, 95 per cent of Malaysia’s active association clients are headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.
“With this percentage and in order to attract more national business to Sarawak, SCB has to increase its resource allocation and promotional activites over there. The new SCB branch office in Plaza Mont Kiara, KL will be working closely with MyCEB in terms of research, sales and public relations,” he added.
Roziman highlighted, “To let everyone know how big the MICE business is globally – Malaysia only takes two per cent of it. So you can see how important the global industry is.”