Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre was announced as a winner of the very first ICCA Best PR Award recently at the ICCA Congress in Shanghai, China-P.R. by Martin Lewis, chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board of International Meetings Review, the sponsor of the Award.

Martin Lewis: "The measurement methodology, combined with consistent creativity won the day for KLCC. Year on year KLCC has always been strong on the creative front, but their evaluation processes and measurement of ROI was hard-nosed and scientific, impressing all the judges across the board."

Peter Brokenshire, general manager at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, upon receiving the award: "The KLCC is honored to receive the inaugural ICCA PR Award and we congratulate all finalists. This accolade is dedicated to the KLCC team and our support agency who in every way make up part of the story that culminates in this award, and we hope that by sharing our approach at the Media & PR session here at the Congress, we can offer informative and valuable insights that can be helpful learning tips to our industry counterparts."

Congratulations also go out to the other four finalists of the 2013 ICCA Best PR Award: Amsterdam RAI, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Seoul Tourism Organisation and Wonderful Copenhagen Convention Bureau.

The finalists and the winner receive worldwide acknowledgement and profiling via ICCA and IMR, and have the opportunity give a short presentation on their PR strategy and campaigns in a dedicated Media and PR session at the ICCA Congress.

The ICCA Best PR Award recognizes exceptional PR performance by ICCA members. The unique feature of the ICCA Best PR Award competition, in association with International Meetings Review (IMR) is that there is no need to actually send in an entry. Instead, editorial representatives from IMR publishers and ICCA's PR staff have been carefully evaluating the PR coverage of ICCA members over the course of the whole year. They have been looking out for strong story-telling, for high-visibility coverage, for brand consistency, for PR that helps to overcome a crisis, and PR that showcases success, covering both traditional print and web/social media channels.

The ICCA Best PR Award competition was launched at the 2012 ICCA Congress in Puerto Rico, where ICCA and its Business Partner, International Meetings Review, launched their long-term strategic collaboration. IMR took over the sponsorship of the Sunday lunch for what will become a regular, annual showcase of IMR and their media partners from around the world, and a celebration of the very best PR work by ICCA members.

ICCA CEO Martin Sirk: "We have long believed that PR is one of the most cost-effective yet under-utilized elements in the marketing mix. Our aim is to help ICCA members gain the best possible editorial coverage. We are sure that our partnership with IMR on this new award and the PR tools that we offer to our members will help to dramatically improve ICCA member's PR performance".