The Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism sector urgently requires robust government intervention, its top executives say.
The industry is facing a significant downturn, with projected MICE arrivals for 2024 expected to fall below one million, a decrease from 1.1 million visitors. Without strong and immediate government support, the industry’s decline will likely continue.
The Thailand Incentive and Convention Association (TICA) recently outlined critical measures requiring government action to mitigate such negative impacts as the recent earthquake and the Trump administration’s tariffs.
TICA’s newly elected president, Prachoom Tantiprasertsuk, said, “Our immediate plan focuses on launching effective sales and marketing campaigns. We remain hopeful of a turnaround in the remaining two quarters of the year.”
To date, Thailand has welcomed 590,000 MICE tourists, generating 33 billion baht. Last year, the country earned 69.5 billion baht from MICE visitors.
“We need to launch hard-sell in parallel with the traditional marketing; each attempt should target a different cluster. Despite the gloomy economic outlook, we know there are potential catches such as the basic needs industry like food and medicine, professional services, the media and entertainment industry,” Prachoom said.
She added that while the long-haul market declined, the country would instead penetrate short-haul and domestic markets to compensate for the drop.
A major change is that when MICE tourists come, they tend to spend less time and lower their budgets.
Territory-wise, the top 10 MICE visitors are from China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korean, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, the United States and Japan.
Sumate Sudasna, TICA’s president emeritus, noted that every destination is seeing a drop in MICE visitor numbers.
He added that clients were more cautious about spending and sought greater value for money. Some clients requested quotations from three different places to compare and pick the best deal.
“The profit of destination management has also decreased to 10-15% from the previous 20%,” he added.
“The MICE industry will need a major push from the government and collaboration from all in the ecosystem. The government could, first and foremost, offer incentives for business meetings. Killing two birds with one stone, the government can give a tax reduction for any meetings or events that take place in so-called Muang Rong (second-tier destinations),” Sumate continued.
The new and emeritus presidents share the wish for tax incentives.
“The government should make the tax benefit easier,” said Sumate, adding that tax benefits could start with leaders in each sector in the country as they are the group with potential. Travel is needed to boost performance of tourists,” he noted.
While tax incentives and other benefits are short-term measures, like an injection for a sick person, the long-term cure is equally important, and means boosting the entire MICE ecosystem.
In a written statement, the new TICA president listed measures including infrastructure improvement, promoting upskilling and reskilling of personnel, tackling workforce shortages, and emphasizing sustainability, particularly certifying the sustainability of hotels and products.
“Our hotel and facilities meet the international standard but our accreditation may not be recognized on the international market so we need to improve on that,” she said.
Asked whether the government’s soft power promotion campaign benefits the sector, Prachoom said it did not have an immediate impact on this industry.
“However, it benefits the industry in that it gives us new products to sell—though we have had soft power for a long time without naming it,” she added.
On the plan to build entertainment complexes where a casino accounts for 10 percent of the space, Sumate questioned whether Thailand lacked such space. “What shortage do we have? We must first fill our existing supply,” he asked.
