Tri-party initiative targets Mice

Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is partnering with Thailand Incentive and Convention Association (TICA) and the Association of Thai Travel Agents (Atta) to launch the first three-party initiative, “M&I Redefine — M&I Market Champion”, which is aimed at gaining more market insights into the meetings and incentives travel (M&I) sectors to help win more business for Thailand.

The sectors have played a key role in Thailand’s Mice businesses, which also include conventions and exhibitions.

Nichapa Yoswee, senior vice-president for business at TCEB, said the initiative will help TCEB design marketing directions, strategies and campaigns for Thailand to attract more M&I groups from key source markets overseas.

Under the partnership, each partner will nominate representatives to be champions of a specific market.

For TICA and Atta market champions, their roles will include advisory positions to the TCEB’s M&I Department, including overseas representatives.

Together, they provide strategic direction, marketing plans, ideas and initiatives from the M&I team while sharing market movements, key trends and hot issues.

Initially, 17 market champions have been appointed: nine from TICA, five from TCEB and three from Atta to give guidance on foreign markets.

According to TCEB, during the financial year 2019 ending on Sept 30, the M&I Department provided support to 286 M&I groups, totalling 199,458 participants, generating 15.2 billion baht in revenue.

Of the total number of groups, Asean accounted for the highest with 112 groups (25,448 participants); followed by South Asia with 51 groups (32,381 participants) and North Asia 46 groups (111,556 participants).

In the first nine months of this year, Thailand welcomed a total of 967,828 overseas Mice travellers.

Of this figure, 249,371 were meeting travellers, representing 25.8%, while incentive travellers totalled 274,093, accounting for 28.3%.