The biggest issue facing the industry at present is overcoming the false impression created by the MICE acronym. MICE is not a market, but four separate markets united only by convenience and similar utilisation of resources. Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions – each has a particular purpose, requirements, buyers and administrative needs.
Merging these markets poses a false impression, which is an issue because it deceives so many vendors. Furthermore, it has negative consequences to the health of these individual markets. The list of deceptions is long, but the biggest is that resources can be presented and sold in the same way to all four markets.
Take a few aspects of the incentive market, for example. Destinations and properties are presented as ideal for the MICE market because they offer splendid meeting facilities. Convenient, but not a significant inducement to incentive buyers. Conversely, the lack of such facilities can delude other operators to disregard the MICE market, while incentive buyers may jump at what they do have to offer.
The purpose of meetings, conventions and exhibitions is served at the time of their delivery. That is not so with incentive programs, which are operated to influence and reward behaviour of the participants.
Incentive events take place after the program concludes, so their immediate value lies in their power to induce specified behaviour. Appropriate event content and delivery is certainly essential and has future value, but it is enticement and not the event that is critical. That calls for particular attributes, resources and communication, but the call is seldom heard within the one-size-fits-all MICE environment.
Missing adequate understanding of market-specific needs leads to wasted opportunities to promote the right product with the right proposition to the right buyers; the most significant inhibitor to growth in all four of the MICE markets.
