INTRODUCTION

Every event organizer needs to learn how to organise and analyse MICE event so that

we can know what the problem are during an event, to make sure the event can run smoothly

on that day and the problem won’t happened in the next event. In this assignment, we need to

analysis the event profile, event detail, event theme, the stakeholder involves in the event and

impact of event. The MICE event that we chose is Facon Education Fair 2017 at Kuala Lumpur

Convention Centre. Facon Education Fair 2017 is not only held in Kuala Lumpur but also in

Malacca, Penang, Alor Setar, Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. Facon Education

Fair is the place for students and also adults to gather information for a better choice of

educational needs. It provided a platform to promote and disseminate information on courses

offered by institutions of higher learning.

Therefore, we will discuss into more details about the reason of choosing date, time and

venue of Facon Education Fairand how will it impact your event directly. Besides that, we will

also discuss about the event theme which many event planners believed that a theme can help

add structure to the décor and activities as well as tie it all neatly together. They can be a great

way for your attendees to get involved and it can be fun participatory activities. Next, we will

identify the role of stakeholder that involved in the event and what the benefit they bring toward

to the event.

Last but not least, event are powerful platforms, it can have lasting positive or negative

impacts. Impacts are the lasting effects of an event, those that continue to exist after the event

has taken place. Impacts can take many forms, including but to limited to, economic impacts,

social impacts, environmental impacts and political impacts. It is important for event organizer

to have a thorough understanding of impacts, so that they can plan their events to have impacts

that are positive as opposed to negative.

1
 I. OVERVIEW OF THE EVENT

EVENT PROFILE

Facon Education Fair is one of the largest and most comprehensive education road show

in Malaysia. This event provides the attendees with the most effective platform to promote and

disseminate information on course offered by institutions of higher learning. This event gives

attendance the unique experience to meet with representatives of world-renowned institutions

and gives them the best counselling session to access their present standing in this competitive

world. This is where their decisions are made, not only on the choice of programmes, but also

the education institutions to help them build their future.

EVENT DETAIL INFORMATION

In previous year, this event was attracting an average of 80,000 visitors and estimated

700 represented institutions from Malaysia and oversea. It has also attracted four international

groups of institutions from Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom and China, plus

individual renowned institutions from Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, New Zealand,

Russia, the USA and others, underlining the recognition of the event. There are thousands of

programmes are being offered from design to IT, business to law, medicine to engineering, arts

to sciences, accounting to finance and so on. Many of these programmes not only emphasise

academic excellence but also work experience and communication skills, thus boosting a

students’ potential employability. (Facon Education Fair at KLCC, 2015)

All the participants can receive some benefits and gather additional information for a

better choice of their educational needs from the Facon Education Fair Kuala Lumpur. First,

exhibitors are offering reduced tuition fees and scholarships to make quality education more

affordable and those offers are only valid during the Education Fair. Besides that, a financial

2
aid booth at the Kuala Lumpur venues, will offer information on scholarships offered by the

Fair’s exhibitors plus distribute a free Scholarship and Financial Aid Guide. Therefore, PTPTN

also will be there to disseminate information on study loans. At the event, there will also be

career talks that conducted by professionals and industry leaders. Moreover, there will provide

free career personality tests during the education fair.

EVENT THEME

Choosing an event theme is essential in the planning process as it provides the central

idea through which the event is built. Similar to the event objectives, the defined theme will

provide all those involved in the planning and execution process with clarity around event

content and key messages. The overarching event theme is critical to the success of an event,

and as such, it is important to determine the best way to communicate the thematic

message. The theme of Facon Education Fair 2017 in KLCC was “a visit to an Education Fair

marks a new phase in students’ lives”. This is where the fair theme is made, not only on the

choice of programmes, but also the education institutions to help them build their future. Facon

Education Fair is the place for students and also adults to gather information for a better choice

of educational needs.

STAKEHOLDER INVOLVES

A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in a business. Stakeholders are individuals,

groups or organisations that are affected by the activity of the business. Stakeholders for an

event they could be event organisers, employees and volunteers, service and contract providers,

emergency services, local council, security services, transport services, regulators, media, and

members of the public who attend the event. Stakeholders can be classified as Internal and

External Stakeholders, Primary and Secondary Stakeholders.

3
 Internal stakeholders are groups within a business or people who work directly within

the business, such as employees, owners, and investors. External stakeholders are groups

outside a business or people who are not directly working within the business but are affected

in some way from the decisions of the business, such as customers, suppliers, creditors,

community, trade unions, and the government. Primary stakeholders are the people and groups

most affected by the outcome of the project and the outcome may be positive or negative. The

essential primary event stakeholders are defined as employees, volunteers, sponsors, suppliers,

spectators, attendees, and participants. Secondary stakeholders are individuals or groups not

directly affected by the outcome of the project, but still having an interest in it. They often help

provide aid to the primary stakeholders. These groups may include government agencies,

moneylending institutions or monitoring agencies. In managing successful events, it is

essential to engage event stakeholders throughout the event planning process to gain

community satisfaction and support for the event and it can be resulting in competitive

advantage.

The organizer of Facon Education Fair 2017 which held at Kuala Lumpur Convention

Centre (KLCC) was Sphere Exhibits Malaysia Sdn Berhad and the fair is managed by Facon

Exhibitions Sdn Bhd. The participants of Facon Education Fair 2017 in KLCC were Brickfields

Asia College, Quest International University Perak, Asia Pacific University of Technology and

Innovation, SEGi University and Colleges and so on. Facon Education Fair will also see the

participation of foreign institutions of higher learning at its international pavilions, featuring

universities from Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Facon Education

Fair is officially endorsed and sanctioned by Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia in

recognition for its success and contributions to the education sector. The Fair also receives

support from the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education of Malaysia, various

governmental departments and agencies on higher learning. Major media, especially the

4
English and Chinese language-based media in the country, supports and maintain good rapport

with Facon Education Fair which allowed the information and promotion of the Fair to be

featured regularly. Facon Education Fair 2017 in KLCC was also supported by Malaysian

Chinese Association (MCA) and MCA Youth.

VENUE

Choosing a venue is the one decision that will have the largest impact on your event.

The date of the event, time of event and attendees’ pleasant experiences all are partly affected

by which venue you select. There are a few things need to consider before choosing a venue

for an event such as budget, location, parking, atmosphere, capacity and technology. (10 Things

to consider when choosing your event theme, 2017) Since you have been allocated a budget

for the whole event, event organisers need to decide how much of it can you afford to spend

on the venue. Location also is the aspect that you have to take into consideration, especially if

your event contains a huge of people.

Event organizer need to find a place that is easily accessible and enough parking area

for your attendees. Event organizer also need to take consider about the atmosphere of the

venue, it must be clean, bright and comfortable for attendees taking a break or steeping out to

get a breath of fresh air. Next, event organizer must have a rough idea about the number of

attendees and can search for a place that can provide a comfortable stay for all of them. Last,

take a look at the technology available and ensure the venue can provide technical support on

the day. The majority of good conference venues will have high quality AV equipment and

choose somewhere that offers Wi-Fi as there is no doubt many of your attendees will want to

use their laptops or smart phones.

5
 The Facon Education Fair 2017 will be held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre

(KLCC) on the 25 & 26 February. The time of event are from 12.00 p.m. until 6.00 p.m. and

there are no admission fees. This event is aimed for the secondary school students, school

leavers, working adults, parents, academic staffs and university students. This event was held

after SPM and STPM examinations and around the release of the Unified Examinations

Certificate (UEC) results, this is when school leavers will be eagerly looking for vital

information to decide on their tertiary education options. The exhibition halls of Kuala Lumpur

Convention Centre offer complete flexibility when it comes to space and layout, as well as easy

access for visitors. The spaces are ideal for exhibitions, and adaptable for banqueting and large

cocktail receptions as well as sporting and entertainment events.

Although the overall of the Facon Education Fair 2017 at Kuala Lumpur Convention

Centre was extremely good but I have some of the idea that can be added into the event so that

it can be more perfect in the next year. I suggest that the day of the event can be extend until

three days which is start from Saturday until Monday. Although the event held on weekend

will attract more attendees but the car parking and capacity of the hall are fixed, so still have

many attendees are unable go to that event due to number of attendees too big and it is too

crowded. Therefore, if the event extends until Monday, it will separate the number of attendees

into three days so each day of attendees will have more time listen to those education

institutions explain their university into more detail and avoid traffic jam in the weekend.

6
 II. IMPACTS OF THE EVENT

ECONOMIC IMPACTS

Facon Education Fair is one of biggest MICE event in Malaysia. Malaysia is one of the

favourable MICE destination. This had made Malaysia becoming an important generator and

one of the most growth-oriented sector which is gaining greater profitability in tourism industry.

MICE industry brings positive impacts more than negative impact. In general, economic

impacts of the MICE industry focus on the increase in sales, income and the job opportunities

in the local destination economy which resulting from the tourism practises.

MICE industry which includes Facon Education Fair has outstanding economic impacts

as it caters for high quality, high cost and high yield end of the market. This means the money

spent by attendees, participants, tourists in restaurants, in hotels or any of the tourism products

will bring about direct economic impact. MICE industry is an all-year around activity which

tourists can travel to any places every year in 365 days. It offers easy accessibility to everyone

which can visit anytime but during the period of the events held on. For example, the Facon

Education Fair was held in KLCC this year. Some SPM graduated students are looking forward

their next step of education. They might not live at Kuala Lumpur, for instance they live in

another state in Malaysia. Therefore, their parents may bring them to Facon Education Fair for

more details related to the higher level of education which provided by both the public and

private universities and institutions from different states or even different countries. This

situation shows that the economy of the country will increase because when they are traveling

to the destination of the event, which is in KLCC, they must be spending money in

transportation, accommodation as well as food and beverages. In my opinion, when you are

traveling in a group or family, the increasing in number of people leads to the higher spending

and help to boost up the economy. High spending pattern from attendees, participants and

tourists increased the economic benefits and a superior return to the destination.

7
 Facon Education Fair leads fresh graduates to an opportunity to obtain high level of

education, it also indirectly offering job opportunity in the future as they will have the

qualification in terms of education. This can solve the problem of unemployment of the society.

A lack of job opportunities and training opportunities may lead residents to accept economic

inactivity because their prospects for seeking a regular employment appear was uncertain.

When there is a lot of people travelling, the tourism industry is growing as well. Thus, to better

development the tourism industry, job opportunities created. The tourism industry provide

training to the employee to become a high skilled employee. From a research, high skilled

workers help drive innovation, expand business opportunities, create new and improved

services and products to satisfy the customers. I believe that when the customers were satisfied

with the products and services, it enhanced the quality of life in host community and boosted

up the economy. ( AYISY YUSOF, HAZWAN FAISAL MOHAMAD , 2018)

Besides that, Malaysia’s strong employment is boosting the investment and also helping

to drive growth, driven by strong global demand for tourism industry. The organizers of MICE

events will also ensure delegates or attendees return as leisure visitors instead of just business

visitors, bringing their partners or families for a vacation. By using return on investment (ROI),

it can help to estimate all the benefits for attendees and employees, and also estimate the

benefits for the host destination for hosting and inviting a big number of attendees to attend

and participate the event again in the future as the event normally will held continuously every

year. In addition, when the destination become popular may attract the investor from other

country to invest in our country’s tourism industry. Foreign investment is a medium in order

to acquire skills, knowledge, technologies and to reduce debts at the same time. Malaysia’s

economy is showing resilience and is performing strongly. Malaysia will continue to leverage

on the improving trend of the private investment, backed by the positive sentiment and the new

government’s clear direction of the economy and supportive policies.

8
SOCIAL IMPACTS

Social impact signifies the impact which it creates in terms of social changes in the lives

of local people, improvements in infrastructure, lifestyle changes and the others. (CMgr.DBA,

2016) Facon Education Fair provided a platform for people to collect information on their

future studies at the same time strengthen Malaysia’s role in providing higher education to the

public. Facon Education Fair have proven to be very useful in terms of bringing out new ideas,

knowledges and insights to the social with a vision to commit and strive towards creating a

difference in the higher education sector. The Facon Education Fair has become one channel

for education information and knowledge to spread wider and faster especially during recent

years as it was held in various cities in the country. (The Facon Education Fair is Back, 2017)

With Facon Education Fair, it really is a convenience to all candidates such as SPM,

STPM leavers or students, as well as parents and working adults for seeking advices about

courses and universities. This is because enquiring and applying for a further education in

higher institution have never been this easy. Facon Education Fair not only help and guide

students and parents in making decisions about their choice of universities or institutions and

future career, it also makes students and parents understand more about the level and

qualifications or requirements of the universities and colleges that they are interested in. Facon

Education Fair has brought more than 25 universities from Singapore, Germany, France, Japan,

Spain, Korea, China, UK and US of international expertise to the education fair. It can enhance

international markets in Malaysia, in order to strengthen social ties and also provide an

opportunity for our student study abroad. From my point of view, I believe that Facon

Education Fair is a tool that can take students one step closer to their dreams, either study

further in local or abroad.

9
 Besides giving its visitors a chance to get to know more about the programmes and

courses provided by renowned local and world-class overseas. Furthermore, there will be

multi-million ringgit worth of scholarships waiting to be awarded during the event. Students

and parents are able to get detailed information about various types of scholarships available

from the exhibition fair, thus they may also learn about different means to fund their education

like education loans. As for counselling and career guidance, Facon Education Fair often

provide these services without any charges to encourage more and more potential visitors to

visit the event. Therefore, attendees are not only able to select a favourite future education

institution, but also do not have to worry about the financial problem for their further study.

Moreover, Facon Education fair has developed intercultural understanding. Through

the face-to-face opportunity, students and parents have the chance understand the international

education and learn to value their own cultures, languages and beliefs. They come to

understand how personal, group and national identities are shaped, the variable and changing

nature of culture during the higher education in different region of country. For example, while

studying in private colleges, there may be students who come from different places and that

are of different races, or international students which have a different religion, this may involve

students engaging with diverse cultures in ways that recognize commonalities and differences,

create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect. (Developing Intercultural

Understanding, n.d.)

In my opinion, the popular of using social media for advertisement has become so

commonly nowadays in marketing, almost every type of products and services in the MICE

industry include education fair are using social media to promote. As for the criticizes for this

education fair is about the technology, many underlying factors that have shifted behaviour and

challenged traditional marketing campaigns.

10
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

There are many types of purposes to travel such as leisure, business, recreation, health

tourism, religion or education. Example of education travel is Facon Education Fair; most of

people attended to the fair because they want to get some ideas to continue their study in higher

institutions. This event has brought many positive environmental impacts as it is one of the

biggest MICE events in Malaysia. This education fair is a tradeshow which makes an effort to

give positive effects on our country’s environment whilst encouraging other people to do the

same.

Environmental impacts on education fair encourage people to know about science and

use of the scientific method as an important addictive to belief systems and value perceptions

to help evaluate and respond to environmental hazard (Hudson, 2001). Reducing environmental

health hazards and preventing injury can improve health outcomes for the whole community

(Reducing environmental health risks and preventing injury). Through education fair, students

and their parents will become aware and be sensitive to the environmental health of our planet

by being aware of issues such as pollution, global warming, and acid rain (Cunningham, 2011).

Environmental health is covers assessing and controlling the factors that influence health,

working and studying to prevent disease and creating health-supporting environments

(Reducing environmental health risks and preventing injury). This way, we believe that we can

live in a greener environment which is in harmonies life with fresh air. The quality of life can

be improved, can save money with green living choices and we can protect the health of our

families (Metcalf, 2009). So, we need to unite in order to reduce these negative environmental

impacts together.

11
 The Facon Education Fair has fewer negative impacts when compared to leisure

tourism. The negative impacts that affect the environment can easily be reduced. Since the

visitors of the event are captive audiences, the environmental impacts can be reduced as the

visitors are educated on keeping things clean for the sake of Mother Nature. The venue provides

good facilities that are technologically-advanced that will help the organisers in maintaining a

greener society when dealing with a large numbers of visitors. For example, in Kuala Lumpur

City Centre (KLCC) the organisers have provided many recycling bins to the attendees so they

can throw their rubbish in separate bins. From my side of view, the organisers should take

preventive actions to protect the environment so that the venue can be used for next events.

Besides that, choosing Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) as a venue brings good

environmental impacts. This is because Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) has enough space

to accommodate many people at once and the location is more strategically located as it is

within the city centre. People who are going there do not have to use their own transport to go

the conference venue. Some of attendees that are not local people will also come and attend

this event while they are traveling, so they can take a public transport to go to the venue. For

example, KLCC is accessible by Light Rail Transit (LRT), monorail and buses. Not only it is

comfortable for people to go there to attend the event, the air pollution in our country will also

be significantly reduced if the people take public transport. This will reduce the carbon

monoxide and other toxic gases which is one of the causes of air pollution. Not only that, taking

public transportation allowed people to reach their destination faster. This is because Kuala

Lumpur is infamous for its traffic jams. In general, I think that road traffic is the most common

noise pollution source because it is the most universal in Kuala Lumpur (Drowning out the

noise, 2016).

12
POLITICAL IMPACTS

Facon Education Fair which was held in KLCC in the year 2017 brought about a few

political impacts to our country. Political impacts are one of the most important impacts.

Because of this, anyone who is involved in any event have to be mindful of the impacts incurred

to any of the party it may concerned. One of the impacts is Malaysia as a MICE venue will

receive good publicity through this event. Facon Education Fair was a large-scale event with

the average of 50,000 visitors visiting the road show every year. Not only that, Facon Education

Fair was also able to attract more than 600 participating and represented institutions from

Malaysian and overseas (Lye, 2017). Due to the success of the event, attendees will surely

spread information about the event either through word-of-mouth or social media. Indirectly,

the venue which the event was held would surely be praised as well. From my viewpoint, the

event’s success is not only because of the effort of the organisers but also the facilities of the

venue itself. In the future, when other large-scale events are looking for a place to be held at,

KLCC will surely be one of the venues for the organisers to consider.

As the country received good publicity from Facon Education Fair, Malaysia will

receive more opportunities to be the venue for future MICE events. This will lead to the

Malaysian tourism industry to receive more visitors coming to the country for the sake of the

MICE events. The revenue received will increase which leads to the government making a

commitment to provide large levels of funding for the marketing and development of the MICE

sector. With the help of the funds from the government, the country’s venues will be able to

developed world-class MICE facilities. These world class facilities will in turn attract more

organizers to hold their events in Malaysia. Hall (1989) stated that; “Politics are paramount in

hallmark events. It is either naïve or duplicitous to pretend otherwise. Events alter the time

frame in which planning occurs and they become opportunities to do something new and better

than before.”

13
 Another impact is that the government will use this event as a promotion on investment.

Government with the help of Facon Education Fair will seek to bring investment opportunities

to the attention of potential investors, provides capital, jobs, skills, technology and exports, and

increases productivity, innovation and wages in a city or country (Columbia University,

n.d.). With this, there will surely be an increase in the quality of life of the residents of Malaysia.

In a short word, from my point of view, the government should take the advantages of this

events to gain more income or revenue from the investors from other country.

Facon Education Fair’s vision is “committed and strive towards creating difference in

further education sector”. This resonates with the government’s emphasis and support in

education among residents of Malaysia. Up to the first quarter of 2007, the Malaysian National

Higher Education Fund allocated RM19.06 billion as loans for 982,066 students. The

Government also allows partial withdrawals from the Employee Provident Fund to pay for

higher education. To encourage continuous training of the workforce, employers can claim for

employee training from the Human Resource Development Fund (Facon Education Fair, 2018).

This shows the government’s acknowledgement and support for the event.

CONCLUSION

Facon Education Fair is the biggest education fair in Malaysia. It is recommended for

all attendees who wish to get more information about the choices in choosing further education

options are encouraged to visit this event. In our opinion, there are a lot of positive impacts

which can affect the attendees to attend the event. We strongly recommended that our country

should held more events in the future for aiming to increase revenue and prestige from

outbound country as it brings more positive impacts than negative impacts no matter in

economic, social, environmental or political.

14
REFERENCE

AYISY YUSOF, HAZWAN FAISAL MOHAMAD . (2018, August 20). Malaysia to continue
benefiting from improving private investments. Retrieved from New Straits Times:
https://www.nst.com.my/business/2018/08/403258/malaysia-continue-benefiting-
improving-private-investments

10 Things to consider when choosing your event venue. (2017). Retrieved from Whora:
https://whova.com/blog/things-consider-when-choosing-event-venue/

CMgr.DBA, P. M.-I. (2016, January 30). The positive and negative effects of Tourism on the
social-cultural environment of a country. Retrieved from Linked in:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/positive-negative-effects-tourism-social-cultural-
prince-mdusman

Columbia University. (n.d.). Millenium Cities initiative. Retrieved from Tools, Techniques and
Resources for Investment Promotion: http://mci.ei.columbia.edu/initiatives/private-
sector-development/overview-of-investment-promotion/

Cunningham, J. (2011, January 9). Education helps the environment. Retrieved from
timesunion: https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Education-helps-the-
environment-946129.php

Developing Intercultural Understanding. (n.d.). Retrieved from

Drowning out the noise. (2016, July 31). Retrieved from thestar:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/07/31/drowning-out-the-noise/

Facon Education Fair. (2018). Facon Education Fair. Retrieved from About Us:
http://faconedufair.com/page/about-us/

Facon Education Fair at KLCC. (2015). Retrieved from Afterschool.my:

Hudson, S. J. (2001, April 1). Challenges for Environmental Education: Issues and Ideas for
the 21st Century: Environmental education, a vital component of efforts to solve
environmental problems, must stay relevant to the needs and interests of the community

15
 and yet constantly adapt t. Retrieved from BioScience:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/51/4/283/247100

J.KUMAR, K.HUSSAIN, F.ALI. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.shs-

Lye, S. (2017). Upcoming Event Listing 30 November 20171.pdf. Retrieved from

Malaysia a favourable MICE destination. (2013, July 15). Retrieved from The Star Online:
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/sme/2013/07/15/msia-a-favourable-mice-
destination/

Metcalf, E. (2009, April 15). 10 Ways to Protect the Environment — and Your Own Health.
Retrieved from everdayhealth: https://www.everydayhealth.com/green-health-
photos/ways-to-protect-the-environment-and-your-health.aspx

Plenary Hall. (2018). Retrieved from klccconventioncentre:

Reducing environmental health risks and preventing injury. (n.d.). Retrieved from department
of health and human services:
https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/wihpw/priority_areas/preventing_injury

The Facon Education Fair is Back. (11 November, 2017). Retrieved from EasyUni:
https://www.easyuni.my/en/advice/facon-education-fair-is-back-2149/

16