Long Road Ahead Of India In Global MICE Segment

India’s global ranking in the MICE sector is nothing to write home about. India is currently ranked at 28 in the International Congress Convention Association (ICCA) rankings. India needs to be among top-10 rankings. India currently gets less than one per cent of the $800-bn worth of the global MICE market and concerted efforts are required to grow India’s global share to at least 2.5 per cent in the next five years. India also aims to benchmark Indian cities to the top global MICE cities. Currently, India has only one city in the top-100 rank.

Moves are afoot to have three Indian cities in the top-100 in 5 years post-Covid and six cities in top-100 in the medium to long term. The good thing is that India’s MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) industry has started witnessing rapid growth, driven by the country’s robust economic development, improved infrastructure, and increased global business interest. According to a recent MICE study by the Ministry of Tourism, the Indian MICE market is valued at over Rs37,576 crore, with 60 per cent of this revenue generated from Meetings, Incentives, and Conferences.

If India is to move up its position in goal ranking in MICE business, India will have to target global congress, conventions, conferences, and social events. G20 brought the confidence that we have the strength to host international events across the small and big capitals and other destinations, and this must be maintained. Mind you India already has the infrastructure-70 convention centers that can handle more than 1,000 – 15,000 people, and almost 500 centers that can handle less than 500 people. G20 has opened plenty of doors for us, especially in tier-II and tier-III cities.

With the growth in business the buyers are adopting new practices too. One of them being the e-bidding process to select right vendors for MICE services. Generally, the objective of the e-bid or reverse auction is to bring efficiency, bring transparency, cost efficiency and time saving. E-biddings are definitely a powerful tool for products, but services through e-bidding can be definitely challenging. But is it worth? Is it really serving the purpose? Especiually, when it comes to complex large scale mice movements & ultimately who is the ultimate winner at the end? This is something we need to deliberate and debate on.

It has to be kept in mind that top meetings and conventions destinations globally have attractive incentive programmes for meeting planners to consider their destinations. India needs to do the same thing.

Interestingly, India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) has asked for a MICE Bidding Fund with a corpus of Rs500 crore to support participation in global bidding for big congresses and an India MICE Fund to offer attractive incentives for event organisers to consider India as a preferred destination. It will enable Indian entrepreneurs undertake techno economic bids for events which have a bid cycle of 2 years plus. India MICE Fund promises to support programmes like India MICE Advantage Programme, MICE Ambassador Programme, Subvention Scheme, etc. The sooner all these happen, the better.