Taylor's SHTE Students Won Big at MICE Destination Marketing Contest (MDMC) 2021

Events Management Students grabbed awards in all 3 Categories in the MICE Destination Marketing Contest (MDMC) 2021. It was an exciting day for four students from the Bachelor of International Tourism Management (Events Management) programme, when they were announced as winners in all 3 categories of awards in the MICE Destination Marketing Contest 2021 which was organized by Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).

The team members Zayn Muhriz Bin Kaspuranuar, Chee Guo Jun, Aurelia Kezia Permata and Tan Yu Ning received the 1st prize for both English Tour Guide Award and Virtual Exhibition & Booth Design Award for the contest They have also obtained the 3rd prize in Marketing & Proposal Planning Award in the MICE Destination Marketing Contest. The students had been working extremely hard on the different areas of the contest under the guidance of their lecturer, Ms. Ng Wai Yee for the past few months.

The contest comprised of 3 categories namely Marketing & Proposal Planning, Virtual Exhibition & Booth Design and English Tour Guide. In the Marketing & Proposal Planning category, the students were required to submit a proposal for their chosen city, Melaka. For the Virtual Exhibition & Booth Design category, the students were required to design a booth for Melaka city and display their marketing plan on the Virtual Exhibition platform, iStaging. They attended an online crash course that showed them how to create the virtual booth using iStaging. Lastly, for the English Tour Guide category, the students had to record and display a 10-minute English tour guide on the iStaging Virtual Exhibition Platform.

This was the first time the contest was conducted virtually and there were 17 teams from 6 countries who competed in this competition. The competing teams were from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. This contest was a great learning experience for the students in designing a virtual booth and creating a marketing plan to promote their chosen city, Melaka.

Congratulations to the students for an excellent performance!

Appointment of Prominent Industry Leaders as FSLM Adjunct Professor and Senior Lecturers

We are pleased to announce the appointment of prominent industry leaders as our new Adjunct Professor and Senior Lecturers of the schools. They are Dato’ Ramli Ibrahim, Artistic Director of Sutra Dance Theatre, Malaysia; Mr. Rizal Kamal, Founder and CEO of LOL Asia, Malaysia; and Mr. Yusno Yunos, CEO and Founder, Evenesis, Malaysia.

Taylor’s Bachelor of Performing Arts in collaboration with Taylor's University and The Actors Studio (TUTAS) under the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences is proud to have Malaysia’s distinguished dancer, Dato’ Ramli Ibrahim as our Adjunct Professor. An accomplished ballet, modern and Indian classical dancer, Ramli Ibrahim has performed internationally for four decades. As the artistic director of Sutra Dance Theatre, Ramli has choreographed stunning works and nurtured some of the brightest dance talents from Malaysia.

Since his return to Malaysia more than thirty-five years ago, he has been instrumental in transforming the dance scene in Malaysia by boldly charting new paths establishing Odissi as a widely appreciated dance form in Malaysia. Ramli has contributed to the establishment of Malaysian contemporary modern dance through the creation of a strong body of original works, which defines ‘modernity’ from Asian perspectives. Ramli Ibrahim has been honoured with many awards, the most recent being the Sangeet Natak Akademi award (2011) and the Padma Shri award (2018) from India and a Datukship (2013), Perdana Award (2019) and the Lifetime Arts Achievement Award (2019) from Malaysia.

This August 2021 semester, TUTAS Conservatory offered six modules under the Bachelor of Performing Arts minor studies that include Fundamental of Dance and Creative Processes with more than 30 students across the campus. This module offered various range of dance repertoire including traditional and contemporary dance. With Dato’ Ramli Ibrahim joining hands as our Adjunct Professor, students will be benefited from his lecturers and demonstrations that added value to overall learning.

The School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events (SHTE) had recently appointed two new Adjunct Senior Lecturers who are experts in the area of events management.

Mr. Rizal Kamal is the Founder and CEO of LOL Asia, a content producer of live stage, TV and social media content. The company has won the ‘Best Entertainment Company’ in the BOSS Awards (2016). LOL Asia is Malaysia's premier content producer and has developed a portfolio of hundreds of comedy shows, an annual comedy festival, multiple TV shows, a comedy club, talent development program and international comedy tours.

The company has produced shows with over 300 comedy talents with names like Kevin Hart, Russell Peters, Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Kumar, David Blaine and Ronny Chieng. LOL has also produced TV programs for Comedy Central, Iflix and Astro. Currently, LOL Asia is the owner of VOD and Livestream Platform We Are Live, aimed at creating live content for the global market.

He is also the President of ALIFE, and an industry representative of Industries Unite (IU) and Business Events Council Malaysia (BECM) which engages the Malaysian government for industry growth. ALIFE is an NGO that advocates for the development of Art, Live Events, Concerts and Festivals to help boost the live performance industry. Rizal has played a major role in leading ALIFE to develop the live performance industry. His achievements are given recognition in M2’s Leading Men, Clive Men of 2011, Prestige’s Top 40 under 40, Newman’s Creative Pioneer Award, Augustman A-Lister and most recently Augustman Men of The Year 2019.

Mr. Yusno Yunos founded his company with an audacious vision to create a comprehensive event ecosystem that involves event planners, participants, and suppliers. The enablers are Evenesis (www.evenesis.com), a complete cloud-based end-to-end event management system and Venueville (www.venue-ville.com), the ideal venue deal maker.

Recently, Yusno was awarded the Most Influential Leaders in MICE Industry at the Global MICE & Luxury Travel Congress and Awards 2020. The company, Y Us won the Technology Benchmark, SME & Entrepreneurship Business Award in 2018 and was listed as Malaysia's Top 10 Most Innovative ICT Companies in 2014. Its innovative product, Evenesis was listed as the Top 20 Most User-Friendly Event Management Software by Capterra in 2018 and was recognized as the Top 30 Most Promising Software Brands by Cloudswave in Web Summit 2015 in Dublin.

Evenesis has won multiple awards such as Winner of Malaysia INTEL APEC Start-Up Challenge 2013, two times winner of the MSC Malaysia APICTA Awards in 2013 & 2011 and nominated to be on the list of Asia's Top 50 Apps. Yusno began his career in the United States as a web developer at Carnegie Mellon University, before returning to Malaysia to work with Tenaga Nasional Berhad. At TNB, he was involved extensively in solutions development and project management where he played a key role in the development of the corporation’s CRM system, mobile field force automation and GIS.

He then moved on to another consulting firm where he was the Software Architect who produced a variety of online branding/marketing solutions. Yusno holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and a master’s degree in Management Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University, USA. His specialties include entrepreneurship, software architecture, application development, database design, project management, coaching and motivating, networking, event management.

9th ATRA Tourism Forum 2021 - "Is ASEAN Ready for Travel Corridor?"

ASEAN Tourism Research Association (ATRA), together with Taylor's University, Malaysia and Centre of Research and Innovation in Tourism, recently co-organized the 9th ATRA Tourism Forum entitled "Is ASEAN Ready for the Travel Corridor?". The webinar was presented by an excellent mixture of professionals from academia and industry in ASEAN. The keynote was delivered by Prof. Datuk Seri Dr. Victor Wee, Professor from Taylor’s University and Secretary-General of ATRA.

The session was moderated by Prof. Dr. Neethiahnanthan Ari Ragavan, President of ATRA and Executive Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Leisure Management. Key representatives from the Hospitality and Tourism sector in ASEAN were invited to share their views. Esteemed panel members comprised of Mr. Eddy Krismeidi Soemawiaga, President of ASEANTA; Mr. Pham Ha, Founder and CEO of Lux Travel, Vietnam and Assist. Prof Dr. Chayanon Pucharoen, Deputy Dean of Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. About 160 participants attended the forum virtually.

The idea of Travel bubbles can be well-defined as an exclusive partnership between neighboring or nearby countries that have established significant success in reducing the number of cases of COVID-19 pandemic within their respective borders. These countries then go on to re-establish connections between them by opening borders and allowing people to travel freely within the zone without having the need to undergo on-arrival quarantine.

Thus, the forum explored the tourism reopening mechanism in the region in a sustainable way. Several key points derived from the forum were ASEAN is ready to reopen for international market in 2022, Phuket Sandbox has been successful, other ASEAN countries to emulate Thailand's first move and creating travel confidence will ensure a successful restart.