To The Conference I Go .....
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 10:21PM I spent the whole day attending a Haemostasis Conference at the Mutiara Crowne Plaza. Haemostasis is essentially the study of how blood clots, or why it doesn't. It was followed right after with the Annual General Meeting of my society, Malaysian Society of Haematology. It was almost 6 when everything finished, and I have some more sessions to attend tomorrow.
I went to a similar meeting last year, by the same organiser and recognise a number of the speakers. The difference was, that was held in Bangkok. The meeting today was sleekly organise. I am sure that the sponsor put attention to details to who they pay to run the event. During one of the breaks, I managed to have a chat with one of the organiser.
For the last couple of years, Bangkok has been the preferred venue for ASEAN regional meetings, be it medical conferences or others. The reasons; venue, cost and facilities.
Let's start with venue. I know that I should be proud with our KLIA, but in terms of carriers landing at the airport, we are well behind Suvarnabhumi, at least before the latest unrest in Thailand. One can get a direct flight into Bangkok from all over the world. Compared to KLIA, usually we need a transit either in Bangkok or SIngapore. Hence the obvious preference if there are parties traveling from outside the region.
Cost, yes, even though organising meetings in KL is cheaper than in Singapore, we can't compete with the going rate in Bangkok. The unofficial line is, for a single patron attending a meet in Singapore, the same cost can cover for three. Malaysia is somewhere in between.
Let's talk about facilities. When we talk about facilities, we are not just talking about place to stay and the PA system. Most of the big events actually fly in a dedicated event management team from abroad anyway to run the show for them. The visitors apart from staying in good hotel with fantastic facilities, needs to be wined and dined, taken to memorable places to visit. It is all about the whole experience. They don't often remember what they heard in the conference hall - at least that applies to me. They are more likely to tell their colleagues about what they saw, what they experienced. For this meeting for instance, the dinner tonight will be held on top of KL Tower. For me, I have other engagement and can't attend, but that's beside the point. I am sure trips will be organised to visit KLCC and other local landmarks.
As it stands at the moment, we should be bigging it up! We got the venues. We got the facilities. And we got the security, and security is priceless. So we shouldn't be to worried about cost issues, unless Singapore do a big discount that is! However the lack of direct flights do post problems to some organisers, especially coming from Europe and America. The way I see it, one of the ways the Tourism Ministry can promote tourist is by making Malaysia an attractive destination for conferences. Not just for KL, but Langkawi, Penang and other similar locale.
Reader Comments (3)
oh yes, courses/conferences in far flung places. in my opinion, whilst it's great to be away to learn/network, i just can't imagine how one can concentrate being in a conference room/hall when the outside world beckons. i've missed the boat (as i've used up my annual overseas study leave allocation to be in paris) for the annual general pathology course organised by the bigwigs at MassGen that will be held in... (drumroll, please) the Italian lake district, about 80 miles from Verona. and that'll be this summer. glorious weather, beautiful italian countryside. gila nak dok dlm hall dengar pasal E-cadherin/PDGRF-alpha/updates on bushwhacker's syndrome?!!!
ya, psl KLIA. itu dah lama aku sedih. we had more airlines when we had subang. imagine, even british airways doesn't land in kl anymore. blame the powers that be that has been running the airport.
Oi! Jeles aku dengar! But did you say you missed the boat? Aiseh!
I know, the KLIA situation kira menyayat hati jugak la. Exactly, BA given the ghost, so as many other big carriers. It is becoming more barren since we separated the low cost carriers into their own terminal just a few clicks away. The whole place nampak kosong at the best of time. I read in one of the opinion column about the idea making the trip of the KLIA express free if you have already got a plane ticket, or built it into the costing somehow. So, people flying in don't have to worry to get connection into KL Sentral at least. All taken care of.
Unfortunately the reply was, since the KLIA Express was run by YTL Corp, the concession company need to recoup some untung somehow, and Govt are not in a position to broker a generous deal as such ..... hmm Talk about not looking at the whole picture. If no carrier coming, no passenger traveling on KILA Express, less money. Well, what do I know?
personally i'd rather go to boston in err autumn for a mass gen course so that KONONNYA boleh concentrate more on the lectures than wanting to be out there... yeah right. haahaahahaha.