IT OPENED with the La Carlota drum beaters and an all-woman tribal dance. Violinist Jay Cayuca was in his elements when he joined them with a rendition of the Eye of a Tiger. They just emerged on stage unannounced as the lights were dimmed a little past nine in the morning of Wednesday, 27 August 2008, to perk up the people inside the Mindanao Hall of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza in Pasay City. It was an upbeat opening number of the First Philippine Asian MICE Forum and it was much, much better than coffee.

The forum was a timely tipster as Iloilo City prepares for a national conference of tourism officers in October. It is also an eye-opener that our infrastructures - convention halls, hotels and restaurants, transport are limited to mid-sized scale; we are wanting of tour facilities and attractions – places to go and how to get there fast and comfortable. It is also a wake up call for business people to initiate efforts for more investments in this area so that Iloilo City could have a large share of the growing MICE market.

Per Department of Tourism Region 6 record in 2007, the ten accredited venues in the city have registered a total of 1,588 events with 90,816 participants. 709 meetings involving 22,862 persons and 594 seminars with 46,508 attendees topped the list. But most of these activities were locally organized which did not even involve people from the outside, thus could not be considered as a tourism-related occurrences.

What we are looking at are projects regional in scope but more importantly we are targeting for the meantime just the national market. The city can accommodate global meetings later when facilities are already developed and expanded.

Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano was the keynote speaker who addressed the group as his boss and friends – the stockholders, stakeholders of the industry perceived to be an emerging big dollar earner for the country. He committed the continued support of the Department of Tourism to the efforts of event organizers to prepare for and bring more international conferences to the country. He tagged the past four years as the renaissance of tourism with the growth of MICE.

The conference was attended by senior government officials, industry associations, venue and attractions managers, and event managers - those who are into organizing conventions, festivals, concerts, product launches and even weddings; mostly marketing executives, advertisers, caterers, hoteliers and suppliers.

MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions. It is an internationally accepted acronym for that component of tourism which specializes in promoting the place as destination for gathering of people doing something other than just leisure. In the words of Julia Douglas, Managing Editor of the magazine, MICE in Asia, “It is an industry related to the concept of a group of tourists who travel in a country to attend meetings, seminars, exhibitions or international trade shows. The group may include those who travel as an incentive awarded by their companies or organizations.”

With Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul among the top ten convention centers in the world, Asia continues to be a prime venue for the global MICE industry. With Asia as major recipient of the Foreign Direct Investment, it is expected that other parts of the region would take the opportunity to develop their MICE facilities – big convention centers which could accommodate plenary sessions as large as tens of thousands of delegates; more hotel rooms, wellness amenities, tour destinations, and entertainment options.

Resource speakers coming from all over Asia talked about the global MICE market, trends, challenges, and strategies. On the first day, speakers from Macau, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines reported what their respective countries are doing and compared notes on their experiences of hosting international events. Aside from this forum focusing on the how countries prepare for these activities, there were other topics on what clients look for when deciding where to hold their events or who to choose to run their event; how to make your event stand out, how to please the participants, and how to top a successful event in the past.

Panelists were representatives of professional organizations, business processing associations, chamber of furniture exhibitors, hotel sales and marketing groups, ad congress organizer, and food conglomerate. The sharing of information and the learning discussions were extensive.

In the evening of the first day, there was a themed cocktail for the participants to come in “black cool” attire at the Siete Pecados of Sofitel. It was a “hot” night of dark fun and party organized to spice up the event and create a unique experience for the participants; and intended to interlace the “wow factor”.

Day two was another engaging program loaded with and focused on marketing – how to communicate in a compelling, relevant and forceful way the distinct benefits one gets in a particular venue, how to demystify pricing, understand cost, how to bid for international events, romancing the client, and going international. The importance of technical production, safety and security were brought up as essential elements for the successful holding of the event.

The forum likewise tackled how festivals can be capitalized to attract visitors. By timing the MICE events with local festivals, organizers can enrich the delegate experience while showcasing authentic local culture. Three festivals were presented as case studies on how can local governments and MICE organizers work together to leverage the opportunity. An audio visual presentation of Cebu’s Pasigarbo, followed by a report of Atty. John Orola on the origin of Bacolod’s Masskara, and the sharing of former Mayor Benjie Lim about how Dagupan’s Bangus Festival became a Guinness Book of Record holder for the longest bangus grill capped the two-day plenary.

The First Asian MICE Forum was organized by the Philippine Association of Convention and Exhibition Organizers and Suppliers (PACEOS) in cooperation with the Department of Tourism, the Philippine Convention and Visitors Corporation (PCVC) and the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International, Inc. (HSMA).

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