ALTHOUGH government meetings are still among the top source markets for China’s MICE industry, the Chinese government’s austerity drive has taken a bite out of the meeting sector, with the country’s industry players now seeing stronger potential in the corporate and association meetings segment.
Speaking during a two-day industry training session hosted by the MICE Committee China Association of Travel Services at Oriental Riverside Hotel in Shanghai, The Alliance of China Conference Hotels, deputy director, Wu Shaoyuan, said: “The number of corporate meetings are on the rise for the past few years while government meetings are seeing declines.”
Corporate meetings in China accounted for 59.7 per cent of the MICE market, which still lags “some 20 percentage points” behind the UK’s 81 per cent, despite the abundance of enterprises and associations across the country, pointed out Wu.
In particular, Wu drew attention to association meetings as a segment with high potential for development, highlighting the benefits this segment could bring to industry players. “With China’s rapidly ageing population, there are more medical and academic congresses addressing such topics as ophthalmology, osteology and odontology,” he said.
“Such meetings also pave for greater mobility to rotate across Chinese destinations, plus the long preparatory period required for such meetings gives ample sales and marketing opportunities for meeting planners, PCOs and groundhandlers, providing higher revenue and a common winning situation for all players,” he added.
In order to improve standards, Wu urged Chinese PCOs and travel agencies to not look upon themselves as mere service providers but also from the perspectives of conference organisers, while at the same time, deploying stronger online and marketing strategies as “weapons” to compete on the global stage.
Dalian Liangyun Hotel deputy director of sales, Xu Zheng, revealed that the property has taken a keen interest in corporate and association meetings. “We suffered a drastic drop in business from the government sector, so we are turning our attention to corporate and association meetings due to the segment’s high revenue factor.”
“The addition of a new MICE centre and the Summer Davos meeting (which alternate between Dalian and Tianjin) in Dalian last year have helped to further promote the city’s meeting potential,” said Xu, who added that the hotel will also roll out initiatives like property-wide wireless Internet access to meet “expectations of international meeting participants”.
Yang Chengfei, deputy general manager of Henan Professional Workers Travel Service, revealed that the Zhengzhou-based firm has just turned its MICE department into a new company – Henan Guangxin Conference & Exhibition Service – to sharpen its focus on developing the meetings segment.
“Beijing and Shanghai are major meeting destinations since many corporate headquarters are usually set up in these two cities, so we still need a lot of support from the government to build up awareness of Zhengzhou,” he added.
For other stories, go to TTG Official Daily – IT&CM China 2014
