AFTER over a year of struggle for industry players revolving around business events, the Business Events Council Malaysia (BECM), in collaboration with the Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB), is encouraging venues to obtain a Safe Business Events (BE) Venue Certification.
This will help create an end-to-end safe and secure event space for organisers and participants alike.
According to BECM chairman Alan Pryor, the certification programme will assess the venue’s adaptation to the Government’s new standard operating procedures (SOPs), along with the team’s knowledge in areas of the overall operations, food service, hospitality and operational standards.
“We urge all venues to consider obtaining this certification as it will reflect on the premise’s reliability, credibility and expertise in delivering a safe and controlled event environment,” he said.
With the initiative being overseen by the Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Organisers (Maceos) and endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (Motac), the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) as well as the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta), the certification will complement two other similar safety certification standards that were initiated in 2020, namely “Clean and Safe Malaysia” and “Travel Safe Malaysia: Hygiene Excellence and Safety Label”.
With the venues sectors embarking on the journey, it will combine three of the largest sectors in the tourism and hospitality industry to be further prepared for economic recovery, equipped with enhanced certification that demonstrates its commitment on conducting business safely.
Pryor added that the initiative is timely as more venues are being assigned as vaccination centres (VCs) by the Government.
“We have the opportunity to demonstrate our expertise and knowledge in planning, managing and executing events that require a highly regulated and controlled environment with all the right infrastructure that is both flexible and purpose-built. And, when national, regional and global travel resumes, there will be pent up demand and we will be ready to compete actively,” he opined.
So far, an internationally-recognised certification body has been approached to undertake the venue auditing and assessment and the implementation of the safety certification process. – June 7, 2021
