The Indonesia Exhibition Companies Association (IECA) is gearing up for the Indonesia Business Event Forum this July, an event that will be used to enhance the partnership of the association with both government and foreign counterparts as well as develop destinations for business events.
The Forum is slated to take place on July 19 at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), and will see 683 IECA members in attendance.
Hosea Andreas Runkat, chairman of IECA, shared that the forum will touch on the “importance of data related to various exhibitions held by members”.
IECA exhibitions help to develop Indonesia’s tourism sector because they attract foreign tourists – either as a participant or buyer – to the country, said Andreas, but the data has never been documented properly.
Andreas is particularly interested in the number of guests and their expenditure at the exhibitions. As such, the Forum will require participants to record and report such data to the association. IECA will make sense of the information and share it with the public and the government, in hopes of conveying the value of the exhibition sector.
“The data will enable us to formulate strategies to develop MICE destinations, especially those outside Jakarta. With this data, we can also project the number of international arrivals we can attract to the country through upcoming exhibitions,” Andreas elaborated.
As of May 2019, IECA has held 311 exhibitions. For the whole of 2018, there were 381 exhibitions held, up from 366 in 2017.
Andreas is optimistic that the data will strengthen the association’s position during talks with the government. He believes that foreign participation will grow in tandem with government support.
For this reason, IECA has invited local governors and ministries – such as Tourism Ministry, Trade Ministry and National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) – to attend the Forum.
“We have also invited East Java vice governor Emil Elestianto Dardak and West Java governor Ridwan Kami., as Surabaya and Bandung are some of the destinations prioritised by the tourism ministry to be developed (for business events),” said IECA executive director Wini Yoniton.
Also on the invite list are foreign exhibition associations, with representatives potentially coming in as speakers. They include Singapore Association of Convention & Exhibition Organisers & Suppliers and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).
