The Emerging Industry Tourism
MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions or Events where large groups of people meet together for specific purposes planned extensively in advance. Also referred to as ‘meetings industry’ or ‘events industry’, it is an emerging trend in tourism which realises the immense scope of the upcoming meetings and events industry. Apart from being an innovation in the tourism sector, MICE tourism is also known for its extensive planning and demanding clientele. It usually entails a pre-planned agenda which generally revolves around a particular theme or purpose such as a profession, an educational significance, or even a hobby.
Talking about the components of MICE tourism, meetings form an essential part of any organization as well for this kind of tourism per say. Meetings are held at different levels either with board members, shareholders or clients, customers, also with dealers, agents and retailers. These days meeting have become important even for in-house employees, outsourcing business partners or their employees and inter departmental or zonal level resources. Meeting not only aid in business growth and development but they also assist in imparting information, exchanging ideas, decision-making, making contacts, building inter-department team relationships and the like.
The next component of MICE tourism is incentives. A new era of incentive tourism is surfacing which is usually a type of employee motivation or reward bestowed by a company or institution for targets met or exceeded, or a job well done. It is unique from other types of MICE tourism as it is conducted purely for entertainment and rejuvenation purposes rather than for business /professional or educational purposes.
The third component of MICE tourism is conferences which also incorporates conventions or congresses under its banner. Companies/businesses are investing a lot of resources in large-scale conferences and conventions nowadays. Though conferences are generally limited to the topic/theme of the conference, however pre, post, and during-conference elements are to be taken care of in great detail for the successful execution of a conference. Since they require extensive planning, organizing and co-ordinating, they bring out the maximum potential of a company and help in reaching its clients, customers and shareholders in a big way.
Speaking about the last component of MICE tourism, exhibitions and events leave an indelibleimpression on the minds of all participants as well as organizers. Events are organized both at large and small scale levels ranging from product launches, publicity events, trade shows and exhibitions to press conferences, award ceremonies, inauguration and farewell ceremonies. These kinds of MICE tourism require meticulous conceptualization and planning along with flawless execution right from the start till the end.
MICE tourism is also known for its own kind of trade shows (IMEX) and practices which are normally bid on by specialized “convention” bureaus located in particular countries and cities.The marketing and bidding process is conducted well in advance with these countries and cities established solely for the purpose of bidding on MICE activities. These events not only benefit the local economy of the host city or country but also boost the convention bureaux which in turn tend to offer financial subsidies to attract MICE events.
In India there are amazing destinations starting from mesmerizing hill stations to beach resorts, heritage hotels in Desert, verdant jungles and many more for MICE. The options for MICE galore in India!