Kuching Wins Bid to Host 2016 ICCA Congress

After presentations from the two shortlisted destinations, Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia, and the Czech Republic capital Prague, ICCA President Arnaldo Nardone on behalf of the ICCA Board of Directors has confirmed that the successful bidder for the 2016 ICCA Congress is Kuching, Malaysia.

Bidding destinations are required to address eleven different decision-making factors in their bids, from "Value for money" to "ICCA business development opportunities" to "Creativity", and must demonstrate the professionalism and enthusiasm to host one of the toughest groups of delegates that any destination can imagine.

"ICCA delegates are senior-level, highly experienced meetings professionals, many of whom feel they have have "been everywhere and seen everything", and the numerous PCOs in attendance pick up on any tiny failure in logistics or organisational capacity, so I have nothing but admiration for those ICCA members who volunteer to submit themselves to such microscopic, critical scrutiny," said Martin Sirk, ICCA CEO. "But, what is also clear is that those destinations which deliver an outstanding event will gain massive PR recognition and a boost in the international marketplace that can bring benefits for a decade or longer."

ICCA President Arnaldo Nardone added, "The ICCA Board always has a difficult but important job to do. Very frequently we have to decide between bids from different continents, but this time was perhaps our most extreme set of differences - we were comparing business arguments and other factors for a newly emerging destination in our fastest growing region of the world, and a well-established cultural European capital with the potential to help ICCA build a stronger presence in Eastern Europe. Both presented tremendous bid documents, both delivered strong presentations, both teams were enthusiastic and committed. Kuching however stood out in terms of presenting themselves as a role model and inspiration for other second-tier cities, based on how they have used ICCA's educational and marketing platforms to build their professionalism and creativity, so that they are now regularly winning prestigious international congresses in a wide variety of fields. But this was also a whole country bid involving all our Malaysian members, and clearly presented as part of a sophisticated national development strategy."

Paul D'Arcy, head of Bid Team Malaysia said, "The ICCA bidding process is one of the most rigorous and challenging that we have ever undertaken, but ICCA ensures that it is designed so that every candidate destination learns an enormous amount that can help with future bids for international events. I have nothing but pride in my team, who have worked incredibly hard and have come up with some fantastic, creative ideas, and we look forward to hosting ICCA 2016, and raising awareness over the next three years that we will be playing host. The preparation and marketing start today!"

ICCA's future Congress destinations are:

•2013 Shanghai, China
•2014 Antalya, Turkey
•2015 Buenos Aires, Argentina
•2016 Kuching, Malaysia

See also: ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2014 - What does Kuching have planned?