Nepal well positioned to catch MICE

SANGAM PRASAIN
KATHMANDU, MARCH 12, 2010-

Tourism entrepreneurs have said that Nepal has a good chance of winning international bids for MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions), a high potential tourism segment, because of its scenic allures and an improving political climate.

They said that MICE tourism brings high-yield tourists and has no seasonality bottlenecks. At a time when hotel entrepreneurs are worried by low occupancy rates, MICE can be the answer, they added.

In addition to international conventions, resort destinations like Nagarkot, Dhulikhel, and Godavari are hosting domestic conferences which shows that MICE offers good business prospects.

Hoteliers said that among the events held under MICE, professional and business meetings accounted for 50 percent, product launches 35 percent, fashion shows 10 percent and other events 5 percent.

Similarly, workshops, trainings, interactions and cultural programmes made up most of the domestic MICE events.

Nepal Tourism Year 2011 implementation committee coordinator Yogendra Sakya said that international conferences, meetings and sports and adventure activities would be major products during the upcoming national campaign.

“We don’t have a new product immediately, but the focus will be on international events and activities through business perspective plans during 2010 and 2011,” he added.

Marketing manager of the Hotel Yak & Yeti Bharat Joshi said that they expected a 10 percent increase in the MICE segment. In 2009, 130 international programmes were held at the Yak & Yeti. A total of 7,830 persons participated in different conferences, product launches and other activities in 2009 yielding Rs. 40.5 million in revenue. Similarly, there were 725 domestic programmes in which 8,695 persons participated.

In 1998, Nepal received 463,684 visitors with 24 percent of them stating trekking, mountaineering, rafting and jungle safari as their purpose of visit while 11 percent out down business, official and conference purposes.

The conflict and deteriorating security situation took a heavy toll on tourist arrivals and MICE was similarly affected, tourism entrepreneurs said.

Subodh Rana, former president of the Nepal Incentives and Convention Association that collapsed in 2001, said that MICE started recovering after 2007.

MICE tourism was good in 2007 and 2008, however, it slumped in 2009 due to the global economic crisis.

Tourism experts claim that the revenue generated from MICE is almost double that from other tourism segments.