Unravelling the Business in MICE
Robin Lokerman, Group President, MCI, has been driving the company’s expansion outside Europe since 2007. Under his leadership, MCI has registered impressive growth globally. In an interview, he gives us insights on the current MICE trends
Can you tell us about the group plans for MCI?
MCI is the largest meetings and events organiser in the world. Today, we have 60 offices in 30 countries. We organise more than 5,000 meetings and events around the world. Originally, we are a Geneva-based Switzerland company. We became a leader in Europe and in the last ten years have built our global story. In 2015, we launched in USA, which will hopefully to be a big growth market for us. It is a unique country because the clients make global decisions, so we believe that our business will be fruitful to our offices overseas. In India, we have four offices. Headquartered in Delhi, we are also in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. India is one of our growth markets.
How is e-Visa going to change the Indian MICE landscape?
I think the e-Visa concept is fantastic, but to be honest the application process online is still fairly
cumbersome. The process should be simplified. I really applaud the government for the e-Visa, first for the tourist visa and now for the MICE visa.
How is MICE growing globally?
Asia is still a huge growth market for MICE. Our study shows that it’s about a 10 to 15 per cent annual growth of MICE spends by corporates in the Asia market, which includes India. There has been a slowdown because of the Chinese economy slowing down. The Middle Eastern market too has decelerated largely due to oil prices, due to which the government spending has gone down. The government plays a key role in the whole spending and sponsorship of MICE business in the Middle East.
What are the global trends for MICE in 2016, continent wise?
Europe is flat at the best, slightly declining, while USA is bouncing back. That was before
the elections, now, we must see and observe the changing trends. If USA is changing it’s position, it will have a big impact. From the corporate perspective, corporate business and association business, before the elections was really growing rapidly. The domestic market is growing, but we have to see how the international market is coping.
Latin America is scoring well although some of the economies like Brazil are not doing so well. The MICE industry is really weathering the storm. There is still a significant growth in number of events and venues.
In South Africa, there was a huge boom, but in the last few years, it has tapered off a lot. Africa traditionally has been a resource based economy. But I feel once the global economy starts becoming more active and China becomes more growth minded again, Africa will become stronger again.
How is Brexit going to impact MICE?
Some of the organisations will move from UK to Europe. A lot of it will have to do with the exchange rates, depending on how that will iron out. The UK will have to renegotiate all kinds of new contracts with the European countries. They will end up with very similar contracts that they have now on similar regulations. The whole problem in Europe is the refugee crisis. Once all of that gets resolved, I think the Brexit impact will be minimal on the overall industry. Some meetings might move from the UK to Europe, but then if UK gets cheaper some meetings will move from Europe to the UK.
Will technology become the disruptor for MICE, with meetings being taken over by online webinars?
We live in a hyper connected world. So the more people get connected, the more they want to integrate and engage with each other. Face-to-face meetings are the ultimate form of connectivity. With web meetings, smaller internal corporate meetings of groups between 10 and 15 have been replaced. We believe that all these connecting technologies, are stimulating the need for face-toface meetings rather than taking it away.
What new technologies will impact meetings all over the world?
I think digitisation is a huge aspect of our lives today. Project Managers need to become very well versed in digital technologies to augment faceto-face interaction digitally and to facilitate and enhance it. Taping content and repackaging that online or at other meetings is having a huge impact on our business. It’s much more about the content of the events and how can we extend the lifecycle of that content.
We need to move our whole industry from the hospitality sector into the business sector
Which is the most popular destination for MICE in ASEAN?
In ASEAN, Singapore is by far the leading destination for MICE; however, there are some new markets that are coming up. Kuala Lampur (KL), Malaysia is very impressive, and Vietnam is doing extremely well. Thailand has traditionally been a very popular MICE destination. The rising star is Indonesia; we see more and more meetings going to Indonesia, especially Bali. What do you think is important for a country to grow for MICE, especially in terms of India?
Compared to a lot of the other developing and maturing markets, Indian MICE industry is very strongly linked to tourism and hospitality. I always say that yes we use the infrastructure of the hospitality industry, but our end clients are either looking at knowledge transfer or marketing and business development opportunities. Our end clients have business objectives.
We need to move our whole industry from the hospitality sector into the business sector. In Europe or USA, we see the MICE or the meetings industry; in Australia, they call it Business Events. The Indian market will also see many more specialist companies that are providing consultancy services to the customers.