No country can match SL’s diversity of locations for MICE
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Sri Lanka having won the bid, is now staging the French Travel Congress by end of October bringing over 500 French Travel Agents into Sri Lanka to whom Sri Lanka’s Incentive travel products and services will be showcased. This would be a huge turning point in this segment of MICE or what they call ‘I’ of the MICE. Les Journées des Entrepreneurs du Voyages (JEV), earlier known as SNAV, represents over 1,400 tourism enterprises across France and most of the Incentive houses are among them. Sri Lanka’s plan to become the gateway to South Asia is commendable as such an event has brought benefits to the country in the past even during the troubled times.
It is heartening to see the readiness of the current Minister in charge of Tourism and officials to implement such programmes without which Sri Lanka tourism will lose out to competitors in the growing overall market. The nature of MICE is always its specialty, not known in the average tourism business vocabulary except for those who are involved in MICE. MICE stands for Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences, and Exhibitions with recent addition – Events. This makes the terminology complex as there are already five components covered by MICE which call for separate strategies for the achievement of objectives whether they are from the perspective of Sri Lankan Economy or Industry members.
Unlike Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, Sri Lanka entered the MICE industry later in the day as an extension of tourism while this is considered a separate industry. Nevertheless Sri Lanka was desirous of exploring the potential in the incentive travel for which Sri Lanka has strengths over her competitors. In fact in the incentive travel segment no country can match Sri Lanka’s diversity of locations and the creative and exciting programmes available to delight the visitors. With a mere 23,000 visitors in 2008 MICE has recorded over 168,000 in the year 2015 with an income generation of over US$ 650 million into the tourism income.
The figures speak for the success of the MICE industry in Sri Lanka in the last few years. MICE tourists represent the upmarket and spend 3-4 times over average holiday makers, MICE visits generate repeat holidays with families and friends and MICE industry requires additional support services such as venues, service providers, entertainment, etc. Above all, MICE visits generally lead to trade and investment opportunities especially when conferences and exhibitions take place. The visitors meet their trade partners or see the country as an ideal location for investment when the visitors are presented with trade and investment opportunities while they are attending the MICE event.
The future of MICE for Sri Lanka is promising. Although MICE itself is a complex business, understanding the different strategies for separate components of MICE will resolve many issues as to the direction of the tourism authorities. The current trends in MICE tourism need to be studied carefully. The market is returning to luxury provided there is value for money. Demand for business meetings is ever increasing in the sectors of telecommunications, education and insurance, healthcare, energy and many more. The traditional ‘boardroom-style’ space is replaced by innovative approaches where the focus is on creating conducive settings and it is no more a surprising sight to see delegates for instance assembled around a campfire or at a bar.
Meetings and events are getting more tech-savvy than ever before. Apps that are downloaded on smartphones and iPads, easily accessible mobile sites and meeting-dedicated Facebook pages are helping meeting planners not only in the planning, implementation but also in the methods to gather feedback from participants after the events. The meeting packages are coming back while the prices are increasing slowly with the improvement in economy. Also strangely, teambuilding activities are making a comeback. For instance, it is said that venues with options for holding cookery classes, beach-volleyball or golf lessons are attracting more meeting planners.
Training budgets are being revamped to ensure best-trained sales and management personnel to compete in the competitive global MICE arena. Having seen the steady growth in MICE, the exhibition sector in Sri Lanka is lagging behind due to the lack of understanding on the infrastructure need. The Sri Lankan Government has looked at MICE positively and let’s hope the exhibition sector will be researched with experts in the industry. With that, the attention of the authorities and enthusiasm of the industry members, MICE sector is poised to grow rapidly in Sri Lanka.
(The writer is former senior diplomat, DG Tourism Authority, CEO of Sri Lanka Convention Bureau and currently Senior lecturer at National School of Business Management. He can be reached at vwanigasekera@gmail.com)