Event 19th Malaysian Urological Conference
Organiser UCSI University
Venue Pullman Kuching, Sarawak
Delegates 654
Date November 25 to 28, 2010
The brief
This four-day national meeting is held in a different Malaysian city each year. Many Malaysian cities had already hosted it, and the organising committee wanted somewhere new. The four-day event involves two-and-a-half days of main meeting sessions, a welcome dinner, banquet and touring.
Challenges
“Initially it seemed like quite a challenge to hold the event in Borneo,” says Dr Teh Guan Chou, organising committee chairman. “Delegates are mostly based in West Malaysia and industry sponsors are usually based in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. We were initially sceptical, but the Sarawak Convention Bureau (SCB) helped in this aspect.”
The bureau helped with venue sourcing, securing a cost-effective PCO and providing financial support for hosting international speakers and conducting demonstrations of live surgical procedures. SCB also funded an event website that made online registration available for the first time in the conference’s history.
Execution
“The financial support from SCB meant we could bring in good speakers, which made our scientific programme strong and helped attract delegates,” says Teh. “It also allowed us to conduct three concurrent live surgical demonstrations via a video link from Sarawak General Hospital, which was of great interest.”
A group of UCSI University tourism and hospitality students acted as a part-time PCO. They organised a sunset dinner cruise on the Kuching River for a group of 100 people, airport transfers, Mandarin-speaking tours for the Chinese delegation, souvenirs and the main banquet. “The banquet was held in the same hall as the meetings so they had a very short time to change everything, but managed very well,” says Teh.
Comment
“This event received the best response from our members so far,” says Teh. “More than 650 delegates attended, the live surgical demonstrations were well received and we got a lot of excellent feedback. Pullman Kuching is a new hotel, but they were very open to suggestions, involved their whole team in the event and even put up their Christmas decorations a little earlier to create a more exciting atmosphere for our group.”