MICE Tourism: The end or the beginning?

Nomoskar! Hope you all are doing good. With the ongoing pandemic, there has been a paradigm shift in the conduct of the education system. Similarly, the conferences, business meetings and seminars are held all over the world remotely with the use of technology. The schools, colleges and universities are using different LMS like Canvas, Moodle, Google Classrooms etc. and tools to conduct the lectures. Similarly, different tools and apps are used by for the purpose of conferences, meetings and seminars/webinars. Zoom has been one of the most popular apps that have been downloaded during the lockdown period. This is like the black swan moment for technological innovations. But is it going to affect MICE tourism? I have penned down my thoughts on it in today’s blog.

Let us first understand the concept and the history of MICE Tourism. The travelling for business is given the acronym MICE which stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences/ Conventions and Exhibitions/Events. Incentives are the travel sponsored by the companies for their employees on their good performance. It is a niche tourism segment which was just blooming in India with Bangalore on the top of the list. The industry originates in Europe and North America. With the need for information sharing amongst the academic circles by the universities, they were quick to realize the importance of such gatherings. Various business events were also held for the purpose of sales. In 1896, a group of businessman established the first convention bureau in Detroit, Michigan. They understood the value of holding such events in their towns. It has been developing fast until then.

Today it is one of the biggest money-making opportunity for the hospitality and the travel industry. For e.g. in the year 2018, MICE tourists accounted for only 18% in terms of number but it accounted for 32% of the revenue. The global MICE revenue generated in the year 2019 was 280-300 Billion US Dollars, which is massive. The UNWTO has been very instrumental in promoting MICE tourism around the world. It has understood the strength and power of this niche segment. Europe has been one of the most popular MICE-destination. Apart from Europe, Thailand, Philippines, Azerbaijan and Taiwan are few countries that are doing good. Conferences and meetings are hosted in the most exotic locations which give the participants a good blend of work, leisure and luxury. I myself had the luxury of attending an academic conference in Bulgaria. The venue was in Albena, Varna which is just next to the Black sea. The experience was amazing. Oxford in the UK was another place that I visited for an academic conference. I just realised that a number of conferences and events were taking place at the same time including the cricket World Cup 2019. London was buzzing with people around the world. But in India, this segment is still picking up although it has a lot of prospects for being a preferred destination given its rich culture and heritage. It has a lot of outbound MICE Travellers across the world.

St. Anne's College, Oxford

Varna, Bulgaria

There were a lot of speculations on the growth of this sector in the year 2020. But nature had some other plans. With the ongoing pandemic, I can’t see that happening any time soon. In fact, the best MICE destinations right now are, Zoom, Google meet, Go to Meetings etc. Sad! But the big question is, is it going to revive? With so many conferences, webinars, meetings happening all around the world it is actually getting difficult to keep a track of it. It’s a matter of time that people will get adjusted to it. Also to its benefit, it is cost and time effective.

But on the brighter side, it can prove to be an opportunity. With the right steps to prevent containment and right collaborations, it can be an opportunity for Intra India events or for that matter any country. In a survey conducted by me, where I asked the 525 attendees of various webinars, online workshops if they would prefer remote events or physical events in future.

72% of the respondents answered that they would still prefer physical events over remote events. The reasons being difficulty in grabbing the attention of the audience, very less or no networking, technical difficulties, lack of focus, etc. We can still be hopeful towards the revival of the MICE tourism sector. All we need is powerful advertising tools to attract domestic customers.

With this, I end my blog today! Hope you all enjoyed reading. Stay tuned for more…

With Hope and Positivity,

Ambalika