Wake-up call for MICE suppliers

The challenges for suppliers in the MICE market have not become smaller - even with the start of vaccination - they continue to grow. The MICE market is changing massively. Virtual alternatives are gaining ground and becoming firmly established. 

The MICE suppliers - from convention bureaus to congress centres, event locations, hotels and agencies - now face numerous challenges. And I am not talking about Covid, but about what will come afterwards.

Since it has not been possible to hold events for months, buyers are increasingly resorting to online alternatives. This is understandable. Business travellers are slipping away from hotels in the direction of "Zoom" and ?MS Teams“, etc.. Congress Centres, trade fair venues and other suppliers are experiencing a similar situation and can only watch helplessly. Even if this cannot be changed at the moment due to the pandemic situation, it will by no means be the case that these virtual possibilities will disappear again completely. On the contrary: they will become technically better and thus a far greater challenge than the pandemic.

Companies announce cuts in their travel budgets of 70% - 90%

At the beginning of the year, the No. 1 in the packaging industry, Smurfit Kappa, announced that it would halve its annual travel budget for employees from the previous 50 million euros. But it is not only this company that is announcing such cuts, but all major companies worldwide have announced - as reported by the "Business Post" (Ireland) on 04.01.2021 - to cut their travel budgets by 70% to 90% - because they are of the opinion that it is also possible to do it online and therefore want to save money in these orders of magnitude. 

Martin Sirk - ex-ICCA president - took this announcement as an opportunity to warn (tweet on 04.01.21) that the MICE industry will be devastated by this. In his tweet on this announcement, he spoke of "seismic changes for the MICE industry"....

To put it in perspective: it is no longer about combining "face-to-face" with "digital networking" - that would have been a good strategy 10 years ago. It's about an "either-or" decision. And not as a reaction to a pandemic, but purely out of business considerations. In other words: while people look forward to the freedom after the log-down to finally meet in person again, to sit together in a café and chat, or to drink a beer with friends in a pub and look forward to the face-to-face encounters, the same will remain in a log-down situation in parts of the B-2-B sector. The virtual conversation in a virtual meeting is preferred to the real thing because it saves money.

Anything that reduces the number of events and/or reduces the number of attendees of events has an impact on the turnover in the supplier chain, an impact on jobs and on the tax revenue of a destination. The business traveller is about three times more valuable to a destination than a tourist, because they spend about three times as much locally. Unfortunately, this is an aspect that has hardly been taken into account in the entire virtual event discussion to date. Hybrid and/or virtual events reduce or eliminate real events and participants in real events and this has economic consequences. It is about much more than just travel budget savings in companies. It is about how we want to live and work in the future.

The challenge is not Covid but Zoom

Products and offers of suppliers in the MICE industry must be revised with the aim of offering event planners even better conditions for even better real events in the future. For this, suppliers must also seize the new digital possibilities and use them sensibly, but as a tool to create better conditions for real events and not to compete with them. It is therefore to be welcomed that more and more Hotels and Congress Centres are offering their customers the technical and spatial possibilities for holding hybrid events. The question that remains unanswered is: how will this fill the hotel beds and the restaurant in the building? Unfortunately, these concepts often do not seem well thought out. The question also remains unanswered as to whether hybrid events will be permanent, or only a milestone and touchstone as to which of the two variants offered to the participants at hybrid events (i.e. real or online) will find greater acceptance, so that in future there is good reason to stick to only one of the two variants?

Challenge: make even better real events!

Convention bureaus are faced with special challenges, because one of their tasks is to bring indirect returns to their destination. To do this, however, real events with participants must take place in their destination. Hybrid and virtual events, however, prevent exactly that. Therefore, destinations (and all players in the supplier chain) need very good arguments, instruments, products, services and tools in the future which they can provide to event planners so that they can organise even better and competitive real events. Also networked with digital components, which are, however, subordinate to the real event and not superordinate to it. Events that are beyond all doubt in terms of impact and achievement of objectives in the target group (the participants) and that convince companies and associations that they are without alternative. A "must have" and a "must do"!

In concrete terms, this also means for suppliers in the MICE market: better offers and better services - from creation to products and services. These already exist to a large extent, but they need to be much better adapted to the respective target groups or tailored to them. Target group profiling in three categories: Companies, associations and agencies - as has been the case so far - is too little and too imprecise.

Offers must be much better tailored to individual target groups within these categories so that they reach and pick up companies and associations in their niches. In order for this to be successful at all, target groups in the demand market must first be identified in much greater detail. The needs of individual sectors must be recognised and understood. And even if the homework of a convention bureau (or other supplier) has been done brilliantly in these two points - tailor-made offers and excellent target group profiling - the communication of these is and remains mostly deficient and not up to date. This is where MICE suppliers have the greatest need for action in the future. It is by far not enough to place one and the same English-language advertisement in the usual MICE magazines around the globe and to believe that one is successful with it.

MICE suppliers need contemporary communication channels for sales

Communication on the part of MICE suppliers is largely based on sales methods that have hardly changed over the years, namely on conveying information through a personal meeting. The classic "lead generation" is the favourite vocabulary of sales. This is undoubtedly the best way to sell successfully, but the question is: how do these conversations between supplier and buyer take place in the MICE industry? Often they are simply forced (by the organisers of sales events and trade fairs, keyword: compulsory appointments) and/or packed with so many amenities until the buyer agrees. Whether this is out of actual interest or because of the benefits (trips, parties, events, ...) is often not entirely clear. On reflection, they are simply bought either way. 

They usually do not arise on the basis of genuine mutual interest and business intention. And they can't, because the offers (products, services) would have to be known in detail by the buyer in advance. But they are not. The buyer who participates in a sales forum/event or as a hosted buyer at a trade fair in the MICE industry usually knows nothing about the suppliers, their products, services and offers, etc. that await him at the event until his confirmed registration. They can therefore only make their participation decision on the basis of the "external circumstances". These are usually: free flights to a beautiful (sunny) destination, accommodation in a 5-star hotel, food, drinks, parties, social programmes and .... yes, what was there (!??) ... oh yes: meeting (having to meet!) any MICE suppliers.

And even if this same conversation now takes place virtually, it doesn't make "the how" any better. Quite the opposite. The last few months have also shown MICE providers how much more difficult it is to lure a buyer (event planner) in front of the computer for a virtual meeting at a specific time. And even if virtual wine, whiskey or gin tastings, or a virtual coffee chat are great ideas and quite creative, they unfortunately also always smack of bribery. Keyword: compliance. Buyers participate in virtual online sales forums because the organiser gives them vouchers worth several hundred euros. These are the facts, this is the situation.

The greatest need for action on the part of MICE suppliers therefore lies in optimising their future communication and in selecting the right communication channels (from online to print to offline). However, the question is currently: which marketing and sales options are still available now and in the future and what are sensible or even better alternatives? Because basically, many of the usual communication channels are unfortunately at the bottom. We can only hope that they will recover in the course of the year, because it takes not only good content, but also good channels to bring it to the target groups.

MICEboard connects customised content with the right target groups

We at the agency have been dealing with the topic of innovative and digital communication for the MICE and tourism industry since 2010. In the MICE segment, we have focused on one target group (customers): namely international providers (suppliers) of MICE services. As a logical consequence, we have therefore concentrated on one demand group: German-speaking event planners who regularly organise events abroad. Because our customers (international suppliers) only have a need for these event planners. Event professionals who only operate in Germany are logically not considered as business partners for a supplier abroad. This simple target and demand group profiling alone is unique worldwide and our unique selling point.

We bring together target and demand groups in the MICEboard Community with websites, events, social media, podcast and broadcast in a meaningful and successful way. Event planners can find information and inspiration for their event planning here - completely free of charge. For international providers (suppliers) in the MICE market, this also means that we can not only implement digital communication in text, audio and video (content marketing), but also bring this content to a target group - which is actually relevant to them - that we have built up with the MICEboard Community. An average of 10,000 users use MICEboard.com monthly as an information portal, about 50,000 users are active in the MICEboard networks and groups in the social media and over 500,000 users from the MICE industry are reached via the MICEboard social media measures.

We reach out to international MICE suppliers for cooperation, because we like the new challenges. We have the knowledge, the competence and the largest German-speaking community of event planners (in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) who regularly organise or commission congresses, conferences, meetings, trade fairs, events and incentives abroad.