Vietnam sets up MICE tourism club

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Vietnam Airlines, and 30 tourism, hotel, and media firms have set up a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) tourism club to boost development of this kind of travel in Vietnam.

Former head of the Pacific Asia Travel Association and the first director of MICE VN, Gilbert Whelan, told Tuoi Tre that MICE tourism played an important role in the development of the nation’s tourism.

Vietnam possessed everything necessary to boost MICE tourism — like social stability, infrastructure, world-class convention, conference, and exhibition centers, as well as deep cultural values.

Besides, it also had good hospitality services and long beautiful beaches with high-class resorts and direct flights to most potential MICE markets in Asia, Europe, and America, he added.

With destinations like Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia becoming too familiar, the desire to explore new destinations for conferences and incentive meetings could be an advantage for Vietnam.

With the global economy still down, competitive prices were also a plus for Vietnam.
However, that were some challenges the Vietnamese tourism industry had to overcome to make the country a major MICE destination.

Vietnam was too passive and lacked confidence in its tourism promotion, while travel firms devoted little effort to attracting potential international travelers.

The lack of cooperation between tourism firms at international tourism exhibitions was the main reason for Vietnam’s charm to remain hidden.

At many international MICE tourism fairs, there was no common Vietnamese booth. Instead, each firm had its own booth, meaning they were very simple and not informative.

Thus, Vietnamese firms had to cooperate to build an impressive image for Vietnam.
Vietnam should add cuisine and handicraft corners instead of providing only information about hotels and resorts to apprise customers about its culture.

It also needed to improve the quality of video clips and publications about its food and culture and widely distribute them to global MICE tourism operators.

Setting up of MICE VN would help develop Vietnam into an attractive destination for MICE tourism.

The tourism industry also needed to include information of cultural festivals and commercial fairs and exhibitions in their tourism promotion campaign so that international firms would have more choices for organizing MICE trips.

Tags: Vietnam MICE tourism club