State to host 27 major events this year

KUCHING: Sarawak is set to host at least 27 major events this year.

Among the events are the fifth Asia Pacific Conference on Public Health 2017, IEEE International Conference on Signal and Image Processing Applications 2017, and 29th World Congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention in conjunction with the 21st Malaysian Conference of Psychological Medicine 2017.

“Over the long term, we can expect these 35,000 delegates to import to Sarawak vital research, knowledge exchange, technical expertise, and trade partnerships, while in the short term they will spend RM56 million in Sarawak in direct delegate expenditure,” Sarawak Convention Bureau (SCB) group CEO and managing director Mike Cannon said in a press release yesterday.

Last year, SCB and its partners seized 83 business events (BE) – 59 bids won and 24 bids supported – which will take place between this year and 2020.

In addition to attracting 35,000 delegates in the years to come, 2016 also marked a booming decade of business events in Sarawak and the hosting of the prestigious 55th International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Congress – the most authoritative meeting of the BE profession. SCB, established in 2006 by the state government to provide professional advisory services to meeting planners, has pushed the envelope by positioning Sarawak as one of the leading second tier destinations in BE within the Asia Pacific.