India emerges as top source market for MICE in Thailand

As per the statistics released by the Department of Strategic Planning, Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), India has emerged as the top source market for MICE that supplied 47,448 MICE visitors. China, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia occupied the second, third, fourth and fifth places respectively.

TCEB has recently announced a MICE policy and 5-year roadmap projects to ensure that global MICE travellers to Thailand increases by more than 75 per cent from 2012 to 2016, with revenues up by more than 87 per cent by the year 2016. Thailand’s MICE industry is also projected to play an increasingly important role in the country’s overall economy. Currently, the MICE industry represents only 9.13 per cent of the total tourism revenues for 2011, but this share is expected to rise to 18.35 per cent by 2016, with revenues of Baht 130.92 billion.

TCEB have worked very closely with the private sector, tourism and hotel industry, as well as the convention and trade fair industry, to identify the key constraints to the sector’s growth and how they may best target their support for private sector development.