[MICE Rebound]② Expansion of Clients in the US and Europe... Expected Effect of Attracting 200,000 Tourists This Year

Korea Tourism Organization to Support 250 International Conferences by Year-End
Overseas MICE Tourists Recover to Pre-COVID-19 Levels

The MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) industry, which had been at a standstill due to COVID-19, is now stretching again as it enters the endemic phase of infectious diseases. As demand for business events gradually recovers to pre-pandemic (2019) levels, the industry is showing lively movements preparing for a new leap forward.

A representative case is the ‘2023 Asia Pacific Convention’ held by the global company Usana Health Sciences at KINTEX in Ilsan, Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province, from the 4th to the 6th, attracting 12,000 tourists to Korea. This was the largest event since COVID-19. It is also interpreted as a signal that the MICE market’s client base, which had been centered on East Asia including China, is expanding to the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

The finals of the 'League of Legends 2022 World Championship' held last November at the Chase Center in San Francisco, USA. This year, it is scheduled to be held in Seoul in November.
[Photo by Riot Games]

Before COVID-19, in 2018 and 2019, there were a total of 38 large corporate meetings (with over 1,000 attendees) held in Korea. Among them, Chinese companies accounted for 21 cases (55.3%), an overwhelming majority, followed by Indonesia with 4, Malaysia with 3, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam with 2 each, and Japan, Turkey, Singapore, and Hong Kong with 1 each. This means that all MICE industry clients were Asian companies. Moreover, Chinese companies were considered an unstable client group due to frequent fluctuations caused by political issues such as the THAAD dispute. In this context, Usana’s successful hosting of the Asia Pacific convention demonstrated that Korea can also attract large-scale meetings from global companies based in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, beyond China.

An official from the Korea Tourism Organization explained that Seoul’s success in attracting Usana marked a turning point for the domestic MICE industry to diversify its client base, which had been heavily skewed towards China before the COVID-19 pandemic. They added that by securing a large global MICE event ahead of strong Asian competitors, Korea has established a reference that will lead to new attraction achievements in the future.

Major large-scale international events scheduled to be held in Korea in 2023.
[Graphic by Jin-kyung Lee]

Asian countries have shown strong capabilities in the MICE industry compared to Europe and the Americas, leading global market trends. Three of the global top five MICE cities are in Asia. Following established MICE powerhouses such as Seoul, Dubai, Singapore, and Tokyo, cities like Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Shanghai have newly emerged and expanded the market after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of the Usana Asia Pacific convention, four organizations?the Korea Tourism Organization, Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, Goyang Convention Bureau, and KINTEX?worked closely together to successfully attract the event, beating Malaysia at the end of last August.

Following Usana, large international conferences are scheduled to be held one after another this year. Recently, academic society international conferences, which had slowed due to COVID-19, have been continuously attracted, leading the trend toward larger MICE events. In June, ‘Korea Derma’ hosted by the Korean Dermatological Association is planned, and in July, the ‘Seoul International Marketing Conference’ organized by the Korean Marketing Science Association is scheduled. About 1,600 overseas marketing experts are expected to gather at these events. Events that were held online during the COVID-19 pandemic are now transitioning to offline formats, revitalizing the market.

The MICE industry creates new value by bringing people together to share knowledge and exchange information. Thanks to this characteristic, growth in various related industries can also be expected beyond just attracting tourists. Especially, the employment creation potential and economic ripple effects generated through close connections with labor-intensive related industries such as tourism, transportation, hotels, shopping, printing, telecommunications, culture, and entertainment are recognized as even more important values.

The Korea Tourism Organization booth at IBTM (Incentives, Business, Travel and Meetings Expo) World, the largest MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) trade fair in Europe. The Korea Tourism Organization has continued various activities to attract MICE events even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Photo by Korea Tourism Organization]

Government agencies and the industry are making various efforts to restart the MICE market, known as the ‘smokeless gold industry.’ In particular, the Korea Tourism Organization held MICE expos during the pandemic, creating a hybrid MICE format with 80% non-face-to-face and 20% face-to-face events, attracting various events.

This attempt has led to increased interest in MICE events even after entering the endemic phase. The Korea Tourism Organization’s hybrid MICE format, which applies advanced technology that places a hologram of a distant person next to attendees, creates an effect as if participants are actually on-site, serving as an opportunity to showcase Korea’s technological excellence to the world.

The Korea Tourism Organization has achieved results by supporting international conference hosting, attracting about 250 international conferences and 60,000 MICE inbound tourists by the end of this year. Including the ‘Saemangeum World Scout Jamboree (August),’ which involves about 40,000 participants from 170 countries worldwide, the ‘Nu Skin Korea Convention (September)’ with 12,000 attendees, and the international e-sports competition ‘LoL (League of Legends) World Championship (November),’ the number of domestic MICE participants this year is expected to recover to the 2019 pre-COVID-19 level (90,000). Considering that the average spending of MICE tourists ($2,397) is nearly twice that of general tourists ($1,239), the Korea Tourism Organization stated that they expect to attract about 200,000 inbound tourists through MICE events this year.

Lee Jae-hwan, Vice President of the Korea Tourism Organization, emphasized, “Korea is the country that hosts the most international conferences in the world. We plan to discover and nurture domestic-based international conferences and regionally specialized international events, while implementing various strategies to recover the inbound MICE market in line with the resumption of international exchanges.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.