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KICKSTARTED in 2016, the BE @ Penang conference aims to position the city as the hub for knowledge exchange for the Business Events industry.
Starting from its inuagural theme of BE ENGAGED, the conference has successfully set a bench mark for an intellectual conference within this industry.
“In 2016, the conference drew 120 industry leaders from Penang and Malaysia, and in 2017 it attracted 250 delegates from the Asia Pacific region, including the Phillipines, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
“This year’s BE @ Penang is themed BE EXCEPTIONAL, and will take place on Dec 6 & 7 at Setia SPICE Convention Centre, Penang. We are expecting 400 delegates for BE@ Penang 2018,” exco for Tourism Development, Heritage, Culture & Arts, Yeoh Soon Hin said when he officiated the launch of the event at Komtar this afternoon.
Yeoh added Business Events is now a contributing factor to Penang’s rising economy. In PCEB’s latest industry review, Penang hosted 2,511 business events in 2017 and for the Estimated Economic Impact (EEI), it successfully surpassed the RM1 billion mark.
“With PCEB’s continous effort in both developing and educating the Business Events industry, Penang is now making headlines in the global Business Events arena and is now known to be an important second tier destination,” he stressed.
Yeoh said entering its third year, PCEB is ushing forward through this educative and informative conference for Penang as well as Team Penang to step out of their comfort zone and be EXCEPTIONAL in the eyes of the global Business Events industry.
Present at the media conference were chief executive officer of Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau, Ashwin Gunasekaran, its manager marketing communications Yasmin Bathamanathan and marketing & communications executive, Toh Mei Chern.
Joining them were Setia’s senior manager convention centre, Yeoh Kheng Ho and manager, sales & events services Shelly Loo. Also present were Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd’s enterprise business corporate account manager, Eric Lim.
Meanwhile, Ashwin said BE @ Penang 2018 will host 20 expert international and local speakers from the Business Events and business industry. The conference is expected to welcome 400 delegates from around the world.
“Among the topics that will be covered at BE@ Penang 2018 include key areas and trends for business opportunities within the global conference, meetings and exhibition sectors; new factors that drive businesses to a destination, challenges faced by second-tier destinations in branding and marketing to European association market and key tactics to attract businesses from China and India,” he commented.
BE @ Penang is open to meeting planners, destination management companies, professional conference organisers, suppliers and Business Events owners and buters from anywhere in the world.
The conference registration fee is priced at RM500 for the first delegate and RM400 for the subsequent delegates for those who are PCEB’s industry partners and members of the Malaysian Asociation of Hotels. Non-member’s registration fee is RM600 for the first delegate and RM500 for subsequent delegates.
Registration for BE @ Penang can be done via the conference website, www.beatpenang.co or contact 04-261 6161.
Story & pix by Danny Ooi.