Now to turn KISMAS to action

The Sports Industry Convention (KISMAS 09) ended on a high note this afternoon at the Berjaya Times Square.

The two-day convention organised jointly by the the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Sports Institute, was indeed a very relevant and timely forum to determine the path Malaysian sports is going to take to move forward.

It was indeed heart-warming on a cold Saturday morning to see the Convention Hall almost full. At least it underlined the seriousness of all participants, be it industry players, sports associations, officials, athletes, government officials, educationists, media and everyone who had a heart for Malaysian sports to grow.


The speakers and the topics this morning were very relevant and interesting.

Steve Jones (below), from the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) kicked off the morning on a bright note when he spoke about Managing the Commercialisation and Maintenance of Sports Facilities.


His insights on how ASC turns their facilities into revenue earning areas, which includes conducting tours, having a souvenir shop, cafe, catering business, accommodation, making conferencing facilities available to public, sports team visits, holiday programmes, childcare besides renting out the various sporting facilities, clearly underlined how under-utilised Malaysian facilities are.

Then, Ted Meeka, consultant for Sime Darby and formerly from the International Management Group (IMG) and Olympics Council of Malaysia and president, Tunku Tan Sri Imran, were spot-on with their views and insights on optimising private enterprise in sports development.

And finally, Keld Kristiansen from Carbon Worldwide's presentation on Event Management and Sports Tourism, opened the eyes of many on how much potential is there for sports associations and the sports itself has to tap on.

The second speaker on the topic, Datuk Peter Gilmore from T-Best spoke on Monsoon Cup, which really go down well with the participants, especially because of the huge money spent on the sports.

Despite Gilmore trying his level best to justify the hosting of Monsoon Cup by Malaysia, generally the participants felt that that kind of huge money could be well spent elsewhere in sports - for instance development!

It was sad that no one from the Tourism of Malaysia was listed as the panel speakers for this topic and there was no official from the Ministry either to answer some questions from the floor. Tourism officials presence could have certainly given a better insight to the value of sports tourism.

Finally, the morning ended with National Institute of Malaysia director-general and organising chairman of KISMAS, Datuk Dr Ramlan Abdul Aziz (below), wrapping up the proceedings of the two days, before Ministry of Youth and Sports chief secretary, Datuk Yasin Mohd Salleh (above) officially closed the convention.

It was surprising that the Minister of Youth and Sports, Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek, who had shown great deal of enthusiasm on the Convention and was supposed given his address at the closing of the convention yesterday, was not present.

Dr Ramlan's parting shot to the participants: "It is up to you men and women to move all the agendas and objectives derived from the two-day convention", will determine the success of the convention.

For far too many times, conventions have been organised very successfully with top speakers and relevant sports sports discussed and debated, but at the end of it, all the papers, ideas, agenda and objectives have been put on the shelf to collect dust.

It is hoped that this will not happen to KISMAS, which was definitely a very relevenat convention.

It is now the time to walk the talk!