Bumps in the road of MICE

In our series on the Industry Viewpoint we’ve firmly established that yes, MICE Tourism is the way to go! It’s definitely an ‘Ace for Tourism in India’. Recognising this, India is also bringing itself at par with the more mature markets in this segment and this issue helps understand the challenges the industry faces whilst pursuing this segment of tourism aggressively. MICEtalk had been able to narrow down on the challenges that hinder MICE tour operators.

Time taken to finalise deals

Governments throughout Asia have realised that hosting MICE meetings and incentive travel is a vital form of global engagement. They add MICE development to their policies because they see MICE as key to their economic development strategies. However, the biggest challenge still faced by tour operators and travel agents alike is the amount of time faced to close deals. Especially, with the large number of players in the market; competition is cut-throat and due to unorganised elements costs are disturbing.

Subhash Verma, Chairman, Travel Plus, states, “Competition is unavoidable, with all players taking a stake in the pie; hotels, airlines, etc. The principals are in competition.” He reinforces that MICE is a growing segment in spite of restraints like costing and maintains that all the operators should stand up to corporates and avoid standardisation.

MICE is a specialised field and we should choose our field cautiously to face corporates attempting to take advantage of competition between service providers