MICE IS an integral part of the hospitality business. We asked hoteliers from across the spectrum four questions on their strategy for MICE for the discernible future, what were their three most innovative strategies for the year 2015-16; What were their MICE source market and how they were reaching out to them; How did they use digital media and campaign for MICE; and finally the challenges they faced in MICE business. Here is an excerpt of some of the answers we got.

Gaurav Aggarwal, Director Catering Sales, Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre. The hotel generates approximately 30% revenues through MICE year on year. We have invested in the renovation of rooms, up-gradation of banquet venues and increased focus on banquet food quality. We are also able to leverage our award winning Rewarding Events program to gain loyalty from MICE customer and generate international leads from our Global Sales Offices.

For us, Mumbai still leads the chart for sourcing MICE business within the domestic market followed closely by Delhi and Bangalore, primarily driven through corporate and social events at the hotel. In the international space it’s a combination of UK, France and USA. The hotel has been successful in retaining annual large events like FRAMES and Images Retail Forum because of the services and dedicated events team.

The digital space is playing a far greater role in influencing decisions for selecting venues for events and conferences. Keeping this in mind and also the fact that we are one of the largest convention centres in Mumbai with indoor and outdoor options, we have presence on various platforms through the web.

Our hotel website www.renaissancemumbai.com has a complete synopsis of the offerings and facilities available at the hotel. Our Food and Beverage options are spelt out, including details of our speciality chefs, signature recipes and special promotions at the extremely interactive www.rendining.com.  At www.renaissancemumbaimeetings.com, we focus only on the meetings and events aspects listing out in depth the various aspects of an event clubbing it with coordination with our events team.

MeetingsImagined.com is the digital platform that houses our visual inspiration and expertise and is used for ideation, planning and collaborating. 

Finally, to make meetings hassle free, the events team has an app, which allows guests to access all departments related to event.

India continues to face its challenges of Infrastructure and active promotion of international MICE business to the global customer. We are still not the preferred destination against countries like China, Australia and UK due to multiple reasons. The country will need investments of international  Convention Centers like HICC in Hyderabad to really pitch and market for those High Value MICE events to get them into our country. Mumbai with its constraint of space faces even a higher challenge of getting volume based events and hence the opportunity to scale up, lies with the government and hotel companies that have experience in setting up such large venues and making destinations out of barren land.

Tristan Beau De Lomenie, General Manager Delegate, Pullman & Novotel New Delhi Aerocity The unique combo hotel offering from AccorHotels, Pullman & Novotel New Delhi Aerocity, has 670 rooms, the largest ballroom in Aerocity along with 16 meeting rooms and six food & beverage outlets. Our strategies include: A common platform to pitch for Aerocity hotels through Aerocity Convention Bureau. AEROCITY.events is a project designed in association with three of the largest hotels of New Delhi Aerocity to boost the destination as an accessible and comprehensive events hub. We have a dedicated MICE team which has an aggressive reach to the source markets within India to create awareness by participating in all the relevant MICE shows. Food & Beverage plays a vital role in Pullman & Novotel New Delhi Aerocity by showcasing and conceptualising to suit the event. We make use of great technologies like ‘Enomove- Wine by Glass Machine’. We have unique presentations, themed setups and different menu. These pushes up our strike rate to win over the business.

As hotel drives 40 percent of the business from MICE, we are blessed with some great events happening here. 

Our biggest source market is obviously India (domestic) which has three to nine months of booking window. We have major focus on Mumbai and Bangalore markets. 

When it comes to international source markets, we generate major revenue from American and European market with twelve months to thirty six months of booking window. 

We reach out by participating in international MICE events like IMEX America, IMEX Frankfurt, EIBTM Barcelona. Apart from this, we also do familiarisation trips to generate leads. We have a dedicated team to reach out to the associations to enter the large MICE organising company.

One cannot forget digital marketing as it reaches mass audience at once. It provides one common platform for all the registered venues. 

At Pullman-Novotel New Delhi Aerocity, we have ‘celebrate you’ campaign which talks about celebrating occasions like birthdays, party and weddings with us. We also have a dedicated team which takes care of constant social media visibility of our MICE on various platforms like Facebook, Instagram and twitter. We are on our toes to participate in MICE related events. 

The MICE segment is one of the major revenue generating segments at the hotel. The five things that a hotel should do to be on top as a MICE hospitality partner are:  Remain fresh in the minds of people by constantly doing something new and reinventing periodically in terms of the products and services offered;  Keep a lookout for city-wide events to either participate or host to get better visibility in the market; Provide guests access to a range of facilities and services for meetings and events like State-of-the-art A/V technology, maximum utilisation of floor space and high-speed Wi-Fi internet access etc; Have adequate pre-function area adjacent to the meeting space so as to have versatility of space. Added space of the pre-function area helps the organizers to put up kiosks, product displays etc. or the hotel can put up a great buffet outside; Lastly, customize offerings by providing themed coffee break, lunch, dinner and cocktail options.

Animesh Barat, Hotel Manager, The Westin Sohna Resort & Spa. Home to over 250 Fortune 500 companies, and all thanks to the ever-increasing start-ups and e-commerce companies in the city; Gurgaon has been a great source of MICE business for the city hotels and off-beat resorts in and around Delhi NCR. Since 2012 Gurgaon and NCR beats Bengaluru in net penetration and took a giant leap forward in the digital race, and has come a long way since. Some of our strategies that helped grow our MICE business this year are targeting corporates in the region for weekday conferences and events and offer rate benefits. Sell more residential events and increase room nights, additional F&B sales and more spent on additional resort services. A strong brand association and our even stronger loyalty program paired with innovative food and beverage brand programs.

Today MICE contributes almost 30 percent of our total revenue and this is projected to grow year-on-year.

Delhi NCR contributes to 90 percent of the hotel MICE business. Our combined hotel sales team (Westin Gurgaon and Westin Sohna Resort & Spa) are in constant touch with our clients and ensure that they go out of the way to fulfil their requirements.  

Digital marketing is not very significant for our MICE business as most of the events are driven by the relationships that our sales team shares with the clients. However; our hotel loyalty programs like SPG pro (meeting planners program) and SPG program also contributes to this business.  

The biggest challenge that was faced in The Westin Sohna Resort and Spa was the limited options for Indoor banquet/conference venue in 2015, this was solved with the art banquet complex. We have continued to upgrade our resort facility with more outdoor venues and by promoting wellness and health (which also stands as a strong Westin Brand pillar) along with new recreational activities post a detailed feasibility study.

Shobhit Sawhney, General Manager, Park Hyatt Goa Resort and Spa. Park Hyatt Goa Resort and Spa is a preferred destination for luxury events, high-end incentives, weddings and corporate off-sites. Owing to the niche events that we cater to our strategy has been to create unique personalized experiences. For 2017, the game plan will be to continue creating memorable experiences with the personalized luxury that is our promise.

Our key markets are the domestic markets only. We also host a lot of weddings and social events from our domestic and international markets. We reach out to our source markets using advertising, social media and we also have our sales teams constantly meeting and interacting with potential clients. We capitalize on MICE Trade fairs and digital marketing activities to enhance our presence in these key markets.

Digital marketing has started playing a very important role in MICE and helps us target our customers using the specific geo-marketing campaigns. We also use Digital media extensively to showcase our beautiful venues and offerings. Our wedding and aerial videos are loved by all audiences as they showcase the exquisite experiences very aptly. When we redesigned our room categories this year, we carried out an elaborate campaign highlighting the USP of each of the views that the hotel has to offer and the same was targeted to a specific audience demographic only. We regularly update our image library with new and out-of-the-box event set-ups done by event management companies and corporates to fulfil their explicit requirements. 

Goa lacks large MICE facilities and thus limits the opportunities to host national and international events, hence our focus continues to be luxury events, high-end incentives, weddings and corporate off-sites. Short paced MICE business is an increasing challenge here as it is very difficult to plan events at a destination which already has limited resources and infrastructure support.

Pranav Joshi, Director of Sales & Marketing, Crowne Plaza New Delhi Rohini. The strategies we have adopted at Crowne Plaza New Delhi Rohini viz MICE business include: participating in the IHG LeadShare- a program that brings IHG properties across the world together to share property-direct leads for groups and meetings; Following annual event calendars and MICE trackers; Offering IHG® Business Rewards (a global loyalty programme from IHG® Rewards Club), to those who book accommodation, meetings and events including social events on behalf of others. Because planners give a lot, and we want to make sure they’re recognised; Reading competition information to target and acquire new businesses that are using the competition hotels; and Offering theme breaks as more and more companies are giving way to combine business with leisure.

At the Crowne Plaza New Delhi Rohini, 28 to 30 percent of our total revenues come from the MICE business. Our biggest source market from industry point of view are pharmaceuticals, cement, battery, apparel, leather and footwear and the agriculture sector.

We reach out to our clients through regular sales calls and relationship building; sales blitz to tap the new markets or accounts; account mapping (finding information and establishing contact with the customer at various level) and through annual event calendars.

The biggest challenge for us in the MICE business would be to grow supply of rooms and event spaces. Fight off competition from new mid-scale hotels offering lower rates. The safety environment, especially important for International events. We continually upgrade our product and regularly service our accounts. 

Monica Suri, General Manger at Le Meridien Kochi. Le Meridien Kochi has the largest Convention Centre in Kochi city and we are making non-traditional spaces, such as lobbies, restaurants, fire-pit patios, and lawns, available to organisations—both out of demand and as a value add. 

The MICE opportunities contribute the major portion of our total business and will be the focus of the future business mix as well. We believe we have an opportunity to increase this. Currently it comprises 50 percent plus of our total business and has the potential to reach more next year. Le Meridien Kochi has Market Mix of 46 percent business generation from MICE Segment. 

Le Méridien Kochi as a hotel has played a pivotal role in transforming Kochi into a dominant MICE destination. Previously the hotel has been awarded the National Tourism Award for the best Convention hotel for the year 2010-2011. The hotel played host to the first ever International Convention in the year 2001 and this further lead to many medical conferences, international meets and exhibitions.

The Hotel has also won the award from “Pollution Control Board – Kerala State Government” in 2015, being as one of the best environment friendly hotel in Kerala, delivering our key message on sustainable meetings.

Le Meridien Kochi is one of the largest hotels with MICE capability in the city of Kochi wherein one can explore 60000 sq. feet of air conditioned indoor space at the international convention centre to discover the vivid opportunities to organize events.

A digital marketing strategy consistent with the Brand message is a great way to establish a relationship with the target audience. For executing a great MICE event planning should be done to create Pre-event and Post Event Buzz. Any interaction during the event, with the participants can enhance the experience for everyone participating. By post-event buzz, we can extend the life of an event by encouraging participants to share their experiences.

Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have a huge influence on the popular culture. Photo sharing platforms like Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr can be used to inspire new ideas for event arrangements and garner excitement for travel and events of all types. 

Customizing the website or blog as a central landing page for any event can market the event on a more holistic approach on various channels equally.

As conference market is growing, there is great competition between venues to attract the business, and having the right ambience might work as a key factor for closing the business.

Although many small and medium sized cities are competing for a share in the business, large cities with their multitude of entertainment, cultural and commercial attractions remain the primary cards for conventions and we believe that competition can raise the quality of the service rendered. We at Le Meridien Kochi take the ‘Challenges’ as ‘Opportunities’.

Government policies should facilitate the development of MICE. The 10-10 Liquor Policy implemented by the government should be reworked on liberal lines to promote the Tourism industry in the state as the current policy is deferring many prospective events from the state. Government can also support MICE by giving tax holidays to private investors for putting their funds in Hotels and convention centres. It should subsidize and invest in constructing, maintaining and updating convention centres, trade fairs and exhibition halls and meeting venues. 

Accessibility becomes another important factor, as the wider the area gets, from which the delegates are drawn, bleak are the chances. Cities like Kochi should get a focussed attention to develop the mode of transport, be it good roads, more direct flights and well-knit water ways.