MICE Events: Challenges and Opportunities to the Tourism Sector

Resumo

Objetives | Business and professional travel is one of the oldest forms of travel. Business tourism has grown exponentially in recent years and is seen as a huge opportunity for the sector. Specifically, MICE refer to Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions that can be held to perform business tourism (Smagina, 2017).

The Meetings refers to a number of events such as: daily meetings, annual meetings, or weekly meetings, which intended to add value through communication, celebrations or training activities, among others. Meetings can also vary in size. Meeting venues differ depending on participation and meeting style, ranging from formative meetings, lectures, seminars, workshops or panel discussions, presentations, or product launches (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2012). Meetings allow the ideals of organizations to be put into practice as well as communication processes between employees, customers, and other stakeholders (Davidson & Cope, 2003).

Incentive trips are considered an important tool by organizations and have served as an introduction to human resource management theories, recognizing the work of employees, not in a monetary way, but in a tangible way (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2012). These trips have been used to motivate, recognize employees for their work and/or increase commitment between the organization and the employee (Pizam, 2005). Incentive trips, or corporate hospitality, have a more direct link with leisure tourism due to the strong recreational nature associated with them, in the sense of rewarding employees (Everard, 2010).

The incentive market is made up of two sub-sectors: individual or group incentives. Group trips encourage team spirit and a sense of belonging with a large number of people, while individual trips focus essentially on the same objectives, but with a smaller number of people, usually up to 20 (Witt et al., 1992). These trips usually consist of an itinerary of accommodation, transportation, special events or other options that offer the participant a highly rewarding experience (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2012).

As far as conferences are concerned, they comprise a wide range of professional events on a particular theme and organized with a formal structure. Conferences can be academic, commercial, or business or for another purpose, and can vary in terms of size and duration. The purpose of a conference is to address themes or issues which are then discussed, solutions identified, or advice given. A conference is an assembly that may involve discussion to establish facts and/or solve problems. Conferences have no connotation in terms of their periodicity and are usually held on a smaller scale than congresses (Sylla et al., 2015).

This study aims to understand the future of MICE events in Hospitality and to comprehend what are the main challenges and opportunities to the sector with these events.

Methodology | To conduct this study a qualitative methodology was performed using a semi-structured interview to answer our research objectives. Our participants were 10 hotel directors in Portugal. The interviews were conducted online, taped, and verbatim transcript. Data were analyzed with thematic analysis procedures.

Main Results and Contributions | Our results suggested that, as expected, during the COVID-19 period, the drop in the number of events held in the MICE segment is, on average, 69%. MICE events are an extremely important segment for Portuguese hotels since, as well as mitigating seasonality, they create dynamism and promote cross-selling, contributing to their economic security. The data also highlights several strategies for adapting the operation to this kind of event, based on making event conditions more flexible, following up on customers' needs, and campaigns on digital platforms and social networks. For the future, our participants consider that there are several opportunities for the development of the segment, based on exploring potential markets such as the United States, Brazil, or Russia, and in business areas that will recover more quickly, such as health, banking, publishing and sport. Moreover, the participants consider that the pandemic has accelerated the use of technology due to the need for online and hybrid events and this will be a trend for the future of the sector. Other trends point to significant changes in how far in advance events are booked, fewer participants and shorter durations.

Limitations | Our main limitations are related to the use of a qualitative study with a few numbers of participants making difficult the results' generalization. Additionally, our participants were the hotel directors who could be more influenced by social desirability. In future studies, it would be interesting to have other participants such as intermediate leaders and the customers.

Conclusions | In conclusion, MICE events seem to be an important strategy for business tourism contributing to the decrease of seasonality. Although it is important to develop the specific skills required in this sector.