S Puvaneswary
Selangor’s Shah Alam Convention Centre (SACC) officially opened on April 27 to become the state capital’s only convention facility. It features a ballroom that can accommodate 1,800 people for banquets and nine meeting rooms that can seat between 45 and 110 people in a classroom setting.
It is wholly owned by the Selangor State Development Corporation and managed by Siera Management.
Director of sales Ali Ibrahim Ahmad said SACC was targeting international MICE businesses for 2011 onwards, with Europe and the Middle East as targets.
“SACC’s unique selling point is that it has 2,000 hotel rooms within a 10-minute drive. We want to attract MICE planners who are looking for venues away from Kuala Lumpur and its distractions and heavy traffic,” he said.
SACC participated in Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME) early this year to create international awareness.
A 40-minute drive from SACC, the premier venue for international conferences, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, is enhancing its offerings.
In February, the centre received ISO 14001:2004 accreditation for its environmental management system and it is also Green Globe-benchmarked.
These initiatives would help attract more international conferences to Malaysia, said the centre’s general manager, Peter Brokenshire.
New soft refurbishments on Level 3 and complimentary Internet workstations on Levels 1, 3 and 4 further enhance guests’ experiences.
Within a 20-minute drive from the centre, two new international-brand hotels will come on line this year. These are the 540-room Doubletree by Hilton, Kuala Lumpur, scheduled to open in the third quarter, and the 445-room Rendezvous Kuala Lumpur, set to open in September.
World Avenues executive director Ally Bhoonee said the new hotels with their close proximity to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre would provide more choices for MICE organisers as existing four-star properties in the capital were all local brands.
“It will add value to the destination. Doubletree by Hilton has inherited a five-star structure as the building was formerly Crown Princess Hotel Kuala Lumpur,” he said.
DiscoveryMICE president/ CEO, Lee Choon Loong, said: “Hopefully, both hotels will stir up the competition among existing hotels in the city in terms of creativity and services.”
Sarawak’s MICE sector will be boosted by new hardware being developed around the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK).
A 520-key hotel is planned for a site next to BCCK and will have direct access to the convention centre. The hotel, scheduled for completion in 2013, will sit on Kuching Isthmus and overlook the Sarawak River. From May, there will be a 150-seat restaurant within BCCK.
At press time, the Sarawak state government was conducting a feasibility study on the construction of a dedicated exhibition centre to link to BCCK.
BCCK CEO, Trevor McCartney, said such a centre would meet the needs of clients who wanted a larger exhibition hall than what was available at BCCK.
Opened in October 2009, BCCK has secured 11 international conferences for this year.
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