The Awakening – Short Stay Summit 2022 (SSS) organised by HostAStay made it second debut at the W Hotel, KLCC on the 26th & 27th October, The summit propels Malaysia as a springboard for short stay businesses to grow, where technology, tourism, property industry, and investors from around the world gather in one place to meet, network and form collaborations.
The main objective of SSS is to boost the confidence of Tourism and Property Industry especially after the pandemic by having industry experts such as Airbnb, MDEC, Agoda, EKTA, Tropicana, Airasia and more to shed some light of the future trends of the industry with strong support of data and insights.
Short-term rental accommodation company Airbnb contributed approximately RM3.98 billion to Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and supported 52,100 local jobs as of 2019, according to a data report by Oxford Economics. Kwan Synsatayakul, Airbnb’s Territory Manager for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan said, “Almost three years on since the pandemic began, millions of workers are no longer tethered to a physical office and are embracing the life-changing possibilities of remote work. As more international travellers look to live and work from anywhere, we are actively evolving our platform to meet the industry’s changing needs.”
“Our latest updates provide guests with greater flexibility when searching for stays – including a search function for flexible dates, and additional search filters for long term and remote work-friendly stays. MDEC’s DE Rantau programme is a forward looking endeavour that will provide Malaysia with an edge in attracting this new global wave of remote workers and digital nomads. We look forward to partnering with the government on this front”, he added.
MDEC’s Malaysia Digital Catalytic Programme (PEMANGKIN), the DE Rantau programme aims to establish Malaysia as the preferred digital nomad hub in Southeast Asia to boost digital adoption and promote digital professional mobility and tourism across Malaysia.
MDEC’s CEO, Ts. Mahadhir Aziz said that through DE Rantau, aside from the newly introduced DE Rantau Nomad Pass, MDEC also seeks to create a vibrant ecosystem that can support the digital nomad lifestyle. HostAStay is a key partner for DE Rantau as it helps to establish DE Rantau Hubs in selected DE Rantau locations. It is also the company behind the development of DE Rantau Platform, a lifestyle mobile app exclusive to DE Rantau members.
Mahadhir added that DE Rantau is capable of accelerating the growth of the digital economy and is expected to contribute RM4.8 billion by 2025.
In line with the travel trend, Tropicana Corp Bhd has launched the ‘Tropicana Journey Collection’, focusing on holiday destinations in Langkawi and Genting Highlands. Ixora Ang, managing director of marketing and sales, shared that the Tropicana Windcity and Tropicana Cenang marks Tropicana’s first presence in the holiday destinations.
This puts the Short Stay Summit in the perfect time and place. It will give a lot of excitement and hope to all attendees both in the past, present, and coming ones. This year we have foreign speakers and attendees from Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, and the US. For the coming years, SSS aims to expand overseas and potentially host the next summit in other parts of Southeast Asia.
“We as the team behind SSS are all so excited and confident that the event will bring lots of value to everyone who is involved and takes part in it. We have hosted before in 2019 physically and 2020 virtually. After 2 years of a Pandemic Halt, everyone is ready to bounce back positively.” commented the Organizing Chairman of SSS 2022 Mr. Jordan Oon, Founder & CEO of HostAStay.
SSS is privileged to have valued supporters like Tropicana, Ekta as our Platinum Sponsor that contributed heavily to the success of the event. We are proud to have on board Agoda, iBilik, the Makeover Guys, Vendfun, Stellar, CT Unity and BPP as Gold Sponsor. We also have Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) who is ever supportive of HostAStay’s initiatives.
