Text by Laura Lee, Pix by Suchen SK
While I try to recapture what Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) chief executive officer Dato Rashid Khan (pic) shared with us at the media briefing yesterday upon our arrival for the Miri International Jazz Festival (MIJF), I could hear jazz music in the background as the bands tune their instruments and do their sound check ahead of this evening’s performance.
Dato’ Rashid, who is also the chairman of the steering committee, shared with us his strategy of organising events to spur tourism. They include incorporating some of the best corporate practices into government agencies, especially into areas like event management.
He said in the past, the government has provided seed money in the form of grants for such events as RWMF. STB wants to go beyond organising the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) and MIJF.
“We are looking at six additional events that will bring more tourists to the state.”
This will take place by 2011 and will have nothing to do with community events. The new events, all apparently music related, are expected to deliver brand value in the long term like what RWMF and MIJF have done.
They will not be just another government organised event but will be run professionally by experts like its artistic and programme director Randy Raine-Reusch and will have key attractions to make the event big.
Dato’ Rashid said these events must be of high class and world standard as they will be benchmarked against other global events.
“It must do normal things extraordinarily well.”
Why Miri? One of them is to tap on its proximity to Brunei and the foreign nationals who are working and residing there to come to Miri.
Dato’ Rashid is looking at increasing the tourist arrivals to seven million into Sarawak by 2015 under a five-year plan. He said the state’s target for next year is four million tourist arrivals and based his optimism on the cross border traffic from its neighbours like Brunei.
Statistics from Sarawak’s Immigration Department showed a total of 3,280,416 tourist arrivals for 2009, a dip from the 3.61 million reported for 2008.
Dato’ Rashid said Sarawak’s niche would be focused on music, culture and tribal stuff. Plans are afoot to hold these new events during low seasons as this when the private sector require the support most from the government. Such measures will also help to fill up the hotel rooms and contribute to the state’s economic activities.
With tourism’s multiplier effect of almost 12 times, the idea is to organise events that have a sustainable impact where the locals will benefit, he explained.
“The event organiser must also look at the profit and loss. The event should at least break even and not lose money so that we can invest the money to bring in more artistes.”
Dato’ Rashid said STB is exposing its staff to leadership development and has appointed two project managers to run the RWMF and MIJF.
Angelina P Bateman, STB former administration and finance manager, who has been made director of corporate communications and governmental relations, will be MIJF project director while Benedict Jimbau, STB director of marketing will be in charge of the RWMF, which will be held from 9-11 July.
Dato’ Rashid added that the governance process would be looked at to ensure that risk management and environmental issues would be addressed in 2011.
“We do not want to see plastic bottles all over the place.”
MIJF should create an ambience of festivity for the city of Miri rather than be localised in one venue. This, he said are some of the directions and strategic approaches that will be adopted for the forthcoming events.
“We want to make it happen and have asked the hoteliers to reflect the rainforest ambience for the RWMF for at least one to two weeks so that the whole city of Kuching can feel that it is a big happening.”
