A CONVENTION bureau that places a high value on the community legacy left by conferences and other business events has achieved a “major breakthrough”.
Business Events Sarawak (BESarawak) has teamed up with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) to deliver Malaysia’s first economic and legacy impact study of its type.
The cooperation comes as conference and event organisers globally are increasingly expected to deliver outcomes that meet environmental, social and good governance in their business plans including travel and meetings.
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Officials from the Sarawak state government the university and BESarawak gathered recently to exchange Memorandum of Agreement documents and to push the partnership forward.
The partnership will see two key projects implemented across Sarawak – one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo:
1) Economic Impact Study: Led by Professor Dr Rossazana Binti Ab Rahim from Unimas, the study will develop a comprehensive economic framework for business events that records and reports crucial data such as visitor arrivals and revenue generation.
The economic study will use the new Sarawak-level economic measurements based on the six key economic sectors (manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, forestry, mining, and services) of the Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030.
The study is aligned with the PCDS 2030 aspiration for business events and tourism to increase visitor arrivals by an annual 7.5 per cent and contribute 11 per centto Sarawak’s GDP by 2030.
2) Legacy Impact Study and Legacy Impact Measurement System: Headed by Professor Dr Lo May Chiun from Unimas, the legacy impact study analyses the wider impact of conferences and exhibitions such as community development, social responsibility, policy influence, and investment opportunities.
The study coincides with the development of Malaysia’s first state-of-the-art dashboard system to monitor, validate, report, and capture the impact and legacies of business events held in Sarawak. The system will enable business event planners to track their impact and provide a holistic picture of their contributions to Sarawak and beyond.
“We are in the second year of the Legacy Impact Master Action Plan 2023–2025 and this stage is about measuring and verifying event legacies,” said Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Sarawak’s Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts.
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“With the research and findings from Unimas, we are going to improve our legacy measurements and be ready for the reporting and communication phase through the dashboard next year.”
The projects are channeled through the Tribe Legacy Sarawak and its “Driving Impact Together” slogan. Hamza said this was a “brand promise that we can drive impact together and measure it. Sarawak will soon be capable of fulfilling this promise for all business event planners.”
BESarawak chairman Karim Openg said: “By next year, Sarawak is going to deliver its promise that when you host your business events in Sarawak, you are not just choosing a destination—you are choosing to make a change that can be successfully implemented and measured.
“Unimas has been an excellent legacy research partner and we hope to launch the legacy measurement dashboard by the first quarter of 2025.”
