Pullman Miri Waterfront: Championing MICE and CSR in Miri
Pullman Miri Waterfront is an elegantly understated hotel with an expansive lobby and is accessible even for those who use wheelchairs. At the same time, the guests are served by welcoming and attentive staff, who ensure that the guests’ needs are efficiently met.
The hotel is close to banks, eateries, convenient stores, and entertainment spots. It is also a 15-minute drive from Miri airport, including places of interest like Brighton Bridge (14-minute walk), Tanjong Lobang Beach (14-minute walk), and Marina Beach (one-minute drive). Being near to the border with Brunei, the hotel, together with the city, serves as a passageway to Gunung Mulu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Meanwhile, the hotel’s 100 percent non-smoking guestrooms are spacious, clean-lined, uncluttered, fuss-free, and receive plenty natural light. Each room features one king-sized bed or two single beds, a 42-inch television set, complimentary internet access, minibar, in-room safe, shower and bathtub. Extra bed is available on demand.
Pullman Miri Waterfront possesses a 1,100-metre squared pillarless grand ballroom with seven-metre-high ceiling that can fit up to 1,200 people in theatre configuration or 900 for banquet, supported by audio-visual capabilities, on-site catering, and smaller adjacent function rooms. With such impressive facilities, Pullman Miri Waterfront can host large-scale functions or events, as evidenced in its ability to hold the inaugural Malaysian AIDS Foundation (MAF) Miri Gala 2023. The hotel, including its owner Interhill Group, encourages organisations to hold events in Miri and strongly supports the drive to turn Miri into one of Sarawak’s hubs for meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE).
Business travellers can use the hotel’s business centre and video conference facility, apart from the infinity pool, gym, spa, restaurant, and bar for unwinding. The hotel even has an indoor bouldering wall for climbing as part of team-building activity.
The place for MICE in Miri
To learn more about what Pullman Miri Waterfront offers, Gaya Travel Magazine sits down with the hotel’s General Manager Mr Alan Tham, who states that his hotel is more than capable in handling large scale events. “The biggest event the hotel had done was back in 2005 for the then Sarawak Chief Minister’s Office; though the ballroom could fit 1,000 persons, the event was unprecedentedly large, therefore the hotel needed to utilise other areas, including the car park, for dining. The hotel is also where high profile events took place such as the birthday of the Governor of Sarawak, Sarawak Day, and the Open House for the Premier of Sarawak, which received 5,000 guests. The hotel’s expertise in staging large scale functions make it suitable for the MAF Miri Gala 2023 to be held here,” he says.
Mr Tham praises the hotel’s heads of department for their reliability and professionalism when assuming their respective roles. For example, the Director of Rooms and Executive Assistant Manager work closely together to oversee group bookings, while the F&B / Kitchen team prepares the required high-quality menu. “The whole team, including the Administrative Division comprising Finance, Sales & Marketing, Talents & Culture (Human Resource), and Marketing Communications, willingly assist with large-scale events even on weekends,” he beams.
The MICE segment is growing in Miri albeit at slower pace. Though not as vibrant as Kuching, Miri hosts companies from oil and gas, including other industries, hence there are opportunities for MICE to be held in the city. “There are not many flights to Miri, therefore MICE business is not as brisk as in Kuching. But I think in the next three to five years, MICE in Miri should grow further seeing that the Sarawak Minister of Transport YB Datuk Lee Kim Shin is actively courting more airlines to fly to Miri because the state government has declared Miri as the second city for Sarawak. This should take some pressure off from Kuching, which gets too hectic whenever MICE is held there. I can say almost every week, our sister hotel Pullman Kuching runs a large-scale event, including the prestigious ASEAN International Film Festival and Awards (AIFFA) recently,” Mr Tham observes.
He further explains that Miri is popular among leisure and corporate markets during weekdays, and Bruneians during weekends, who spend significantly at the hotel’s food and beverage outlets, on top of accommodations. For Bruneians, Miri serves as a relaxing one-night stopover before flying off to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, which is why Pullman Miri Waterfront creatively introduces the ‘Stay, Park & Fly’ package so that Bruneians can drive over to Miri, stay one night, park their cars at the hotel as they fly off, and once they return to Miri, they can stay again for one night, then drive back to Brunei the next day. This package works well – instead of leaving their cars at the airport’s unsheltered car parks at pricier rates, Bruneians can park their cars at any of the hotel’s 451 sheltered bays.
A responsible organisation
The hotel is serious in giving back to the Miri community, which is why the hotel collaborates with the MAF to stage the Miri Gala. Even though the owning company, Interhill Group, is the main gala sponsor, Pullman Miri Waterfront comes in as the official venue sponsor.
Pullman Miri Waterfront also takes sustainability seriously, especially in minimising waste during large-scale events. The decision to ban single use plastic at the hotel is one of the initiatives by Accor, the hospitality company that has Pullman as one of the brands in its stable. In the hotel’s guestrooms now, all amenities, including toothbrushes and combs, have been changed to materials other than plastic, preferably biodegradables. For banqueting and meetings, the hotel no longer serves bottled water and instead opts for refillable glass bottles and large glass jugs.
“We even stop providing mints wrapped in plastic during corporate functions, and instead serve titbits in glass jars. Becoming sustainable requires a lot of effort as many suppliers of the non-plastic products are based in Kuala Lumpur and China, so there were challenges in shipping them over, which we overcame. These non-plastic materials cost extra, but we need to support the sustainability programme because it provides long-term benefit to society and the earth. By implementing this programme, Pullman Miri Waterfront seeks to be a market leader when it comes to sustainability, alongside Pullman Kuching. Being sustainable becomes a unique selling point for the hotel,” claims Mr Tham.
In line with being a responsible hotel, Pullman Miri Waterfront is involved in the corporate social responsibility programme called the Penan Women Project as well. Since its opening, the hotel has been helping the Penan community in selling the handwoven products created by Penan women without taking any commission.
Another initiative is the ‘Step into Wellness Pullman Carnival’, which is already in its third year. The proceeds from this carnival are channelled towards the home for the aged. “We also held the first ever charity run last end of July 2023 involving 360 participants. As for the recent Ramadan, our team donated food for 1,000 persons for breaking of fast at Masjid At-Taqwa Miri. We plan to contribute to Tudan Methodist Church, a surau near Miri city centre, and a temple, by deploying the hotel’s in-house Engineering Team to do minor renovations and repairs,” Mr Tham reveals.
The hotel wants to help the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) too like retail shops selling handicrafts that are not well versed in social media or digital platforms. Pullman Miri Waterfront allows these SMEs to use its venue as a platform to promote and market their products digitally and physically. The hotel ties up with the community called Miri Artisan Market involving 34 Sarawakian vendors to sell their products within the hotel’s premises over the weekend from 28 until 30 July 2023, which was well received. “When we first started, the number of visitors to the Miri Artisan Market was 1,200. The following year, we received around 1,500. For this year, it was almost 2,000,” Mr Tham recalls.
Referring to the opening of Mercure Miri City Centre and competition from other hotels, Mr Tham does not see them as threat but instead as entities for collaborations. “Being one of the best hotels for business in Miri, we do activities to bring up the market, which other hotels can follow. What is organised at Pullman Miri Waterfront can be done at other hotels’ too because we are not doing it just for our own good, but for the entire destination. It is heartwarming to see other hotels emulating what we are doing. Case in point: Meritz Hotel at Bintang Mall has started doing carnivals, similar to how we organised the Miri Artisan Market, including wedding fairs. Whatever products we are bringing into Miri, we will share with the Miri hospitality industry so that Miri as a destination can thrive in the long term,” concludes Mr Tham.
Read about the Malaysian AIDS Foundation (MAF) Miri Gala here.
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