Bringing home weddings & M!CE
Here’s an opportunity for India to shine as a wedding and M!CE destination, was the message at the final session of the Digital Conclave. The next step is for the stakeholders to ensure that the infrastructure is at the ready.
The third edition of the TravTalk Digital Conclave on May 15 also brought three experts together who deliberated on the topic titled ‘Big-ticket business: When do we start looking at weddings, corporate and M!CE travel?’ There can be no simple answer to this, of course. The readiness of not only the corporates but also the service providers such as hotels and event planners is a process. The Ministry of Tourism also wants travel to take centre stage with M!CE tourism as its component. For this to happen, protocols and SOPs have to be in place and every stakeholder has to be aware.
The last wedding we did was on February 29, 2020 in Udaipur. This situation is not that big of a problem for those who have cash reserves. These months are anyway an offseason for weddings. Business will definitely come back by November-December 2020, with a bang, and it will come back to India! We will promote Indian hotels and destinations first. The expense is not a problem as people have money to spend on weddings.
We need to change the narrative of the crisis. Corporates will not buy travel the same way as before, that's for sure. To be able to cater to this, travel companies are definitely going to relook at the mix of people they will hire, depending on their skill sets. The entire travel industry is going to move to IT. They will also have to learn how to close deals on the phone.
We will see a lot of RFPs for exhibitions coming up and those who are armed to handle it well amidst COVID-19 will stand to win. Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata and Mahabalipuram are great destinations for M!CE with good infrastructure. I believe that domestic luxury M!CE will bounce back and by the end of the year, short-distance M!CE destinations in India will be in demand.