MACEOS reiterates the readiness of the business events industry to host international visitors. Photo Credit: gettyimages/alex cheong
The Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and
Suppliers (MACEOS) strongly backed the National Recovery Council’s
recommendation to reopen borders by March 1.
MACEOS President Francis Teo, said, “MACEOS fully supports the
decision to reopen Malaysian borders as this is the next step towards
economic recovery. With international travellers allowed to enter
Malaysia without quarantine, we can activate business events again, of
course, taking every necessary action to strengthen event safety,
protect public health, and instil confidence in everyone.”
Malaysia also recently announced 132 business events secured from 2022 to 2030.
Teo
expressed confidence in being able to implement global industry best
practices and develop a framework that would be suitable for Malaysia’s
business events industry.
In June last year, MACEOS had established a health and safety
framework to meet requirements in the new norm. It includes guidelines
for the sanitisation of venues; health checks for delegates; crowd
control; procedures for contact tracing; social distancing measures; and
more.
With this in place, Teo shared that industry players have been
hopeful of positive announcements from the government. The establishment
of SOPs, combined with the successful roll-out of the nation’s
vaccination programme further add to the strong case for reopening
borders to international visitors.
“Business and leisure tourism associations in the country have united
to establish and implement the Travel Safe Alliance Malaysia (TSAM)
together to ensure safety and hygiene are optimised in the industry
nationwide across hotels, food establishments, convention centres,
tours, and transportation,” Teo added.
TSAM was launched in October last year by Malaysian Association of
Tour and Travel Agents Malaysian Association of Hotels, MACEOS, and
Malaysia Aviation Group. A safe travel solution has been developed and
certified by Bureau Veritas Certification Malaysia
Additionally,
seven convention centres have received the SafeBE certification audited
by the bureau. The centres are: Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre,
Connexion Bangsar South, Setia City Convention Centre, Setia SPICE
Penang, Malaysia International Trade & Exhibition Centre, World
Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur and Sabah International Convention Centre.