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13 Dec, 2016

Kamarulzaman ‘Kip’ Bahadun, President, ASEANTA

ASEAN Travel & Tourism Hall of Fame – Initiated by Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil to recognise the many veterans who helped grow and shape ASEAN tourism over the last 50 years.

kip-bahadun

Date and Place of Birth: 19 November 1941, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Marital status: Married to Rozita Rohaizad in 1993.

Education: Studied Accountancy in the UK

Career

Executive Secretary of UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) Malaysia’s ruling political party, from 1981 to 1984.

Acted in the movie The 7th Dawn in 1964, starring William Holden and Capucine, set in the Malayan Emergency, filmed on location in Malaysia, based on the novel The Durian Tree by Michael Keon.

Director of Seatts Travel, one of the foremost travel agencies in Malaysia from 1980.

President of MATTA – Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents 1980 – 1982.

President of ASEANTA – 1981-1982

Established FATA – Federation of ASEAN Travel Associations 1981 – 1982.

Established Consort Tours with Tunku Iskandar in 1982.

CEO of Putrade Property Management, the company that managed the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur from 1985 to 1990.

CEO of TC Convention Management, organiser of conventions and exhibitions, from 1990 to 1993.

Date of Passing: 12 November 2006

‘Kip’ Bahadun was one of the key players in the “birth” of ASEAN tourism. He led in the effort to change the ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA) by revamping it from an Indonesian-based association of individual tourism companies, into a “federation” of the national associations of travel agencies, hotels and airlines of the then five countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia) and together with Tunku Iskandar, rewrote the constitution of ASEANTA to make it suitable for its new role.

As President of MATTA, he also organised the first travel fair in Kuala Lumpur in 1981, held in conjunction with the 1st ASEAN Tourism Forum, which in later years continued to be organised by MATTA, developing into the highly-successful MATTA Travel Fairs.

Source: Tunku Iskandar.