Drumming in a gathering of global tribes

A “Drumming in Ceremony” for the ICCA 2016 Conference was held on February 27 at the Sarawak Cultural Village, the award-winning home to the internationally-renowned World Harvest and Rainforest World Music Festivals.

Mr. Martin Sirk, CEO of ICCA commented: “My hope is that ICCA members from all over the world, and especially those from less-famous destinations, make the decision to join us in Kuching in 2016. One of the big reasons the Sarawak team won the bid was their commitment to help such destinations to learn from their success in putting Kuching on the map and how they were able to win world-class meetings. There will be great lessons to be learnt as well as a unique delegate experience.”

Mr. Sirk and Mrs. Mieke Van Loenen, ICCA’s Event Director from the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA) headquartered in Amsterdam kicked–off the ceremony to symbolize the start of Kuching’s preparation for a gathering of ICCA’s Global Tribe in 2016. The Borneo Convention Centre Kuching in the Malaysian State of Sarawak won the right to host ICCA’s 2016 conference at a ceremony on Frankfurt in 2013.

“ICCA delegates can look forward into a very warm welcome, very hospitable and professional team from our colleagues in Kuching, not to mention beautiful culture, locations, nature and great business,” Mrs. Van Loenen, added.

Sarawak is now looking forward to hosting the “Next Destination Ceremony” at the ICCA2015 Annual Congress to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina this October. The next destination ceremony will be designed to encourage attendees at Buenos Aires congress to join ICCA for “a Gathering of ICCA’s Global Tribe” at the following year’s congress in Sarawak. Oo-ha!