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 toward 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, reveals how Sarawak’s business event industry is forging a strong collaboration with the government sector to achieve its goals.
Sarawak concurrently launched the Business Events Sarawak Legacy (BESLegacy) Initiative where business events planners can strategically design convention activities aligned to the desired legacy outcomes. The Initiative identifies five core areas in which legacies will take place: sectoral, economic, environmental, community and social, and political.
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. Earlier this year, legacy impact, commonly known as convention legacies, was included in the Sarawak Government’s Post COVID-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030 to recalibrate the destinations’ economic, social, and environmental development. Business events and legacy impact are officially marked as an aid to achieving the government’s objectives.
“We included business events into this strategy because that is how serious we are about events flourishing here in Sarawak,” states Sarawak’s Chief Minister, The Right Honourable Datuk Patinggi (Dr.) Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari bin Tun Datuk Abang Haji Openg, . Further into his session, the Chief Minister touched on BESLegacy Initiative as an innovative tool to “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.”
Echoing the Chief Minister’s words was Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak, The Honourable Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, whose short sharing on the resurrection of Sarawak’s business events industry reveals that “legacy impact is Sarawak’s strategic approach to further develop business event and become an advanced destination by 2030” and that “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.”
A key session on TRIBE is the 55th ICCA Congress 2016 case study, which served as the legacy impact pilot project. Determining how successful Sarawak was to harness legacy impact from this Congress, Sarawak utilised BESLegacy Initiative to trial run its planning components. The trial was successful and the Congress had attained legacy impacts in all five areas.
Enthusiastic with the results, BESarawak’s CEO, Amelia Roziman, also reveals that “a significant outcome is the increased commitment from the government sector to the industry, leading to the acceptance and long term development of legacy impact as an equal to economic impact. Both of these KPIs are important.” The CEO concludes that “We have financial and other various support in place to assist convention planners in initiating their legacy visions.”
Convention planners are urged to come forward and enquire about how legacy impacts and the BESLegacy Initiative can define a higher purpose to conventions. Email Donny Tan at donny@sarawakcb.com for more information.
