The MICE sector in Hangzhou has taken a leading position among China's second tier cities over recent years.
HANGZHOU, China – Hangzhou’s meetings, travel incentives, conventions and exhibitions – the (MICE) sector – have demonstrated remarkable growth and potential over the last few years, and has become an important driving force in promoting the city’s globalization process.
Profound Accumulation Supports Globalization
The MICE sector in Hangzhou has taken a leading position among China’s second tier cities over recent years. Overall, the vast majority of the businesses in the second tier cities are small and disorganized, with quite a large gap between their performance and the performance of their better organized competitors in Beijing and Shanghai. A Chinese observation says that the key to good policy is to first develop the right talent. Hangzhou, despite its second tier status, has so far proven to be the exception to the rule. The city launched several talent pool initiatives including the “MICE Talent” program this year, inviting professionals from within China as well as from abroad to provide special training for practitioners in the city’s MICE industry. The instruction and advice has helped the practitioners upgrade their skill sets in a move to adapt to market changes. These efforts all focus on one key goal: to globalize Hangzhou’s MICE sector by bringing all of its services up to internationally accepted standards and to persuade leading conference organizers to host events here.
As part of this initiative, the city government set up the Hangzhou International Meeting Bidding Service Center in June this year. The organization will, in collaboration with local companies, organizations and convention ambassadors, provide bidding services for international association conferences and other meetings. The establishment of the center is expected to strongly boost Hangzhou’s MICE sector in its ability to win more conference bids, especially bids for international events.
Inviting the Overseas PCOs to Hangzhou
Hangzhou has been actively expanding its market channels. The main components of the promotions scheduled for the second half of this year include the just-concluded “Hangzhou,Inspiring New Connections” event. The event brought together PCOs (professional conference organizers) internationally, giving them an opportunity to experience the full array of Hangzhou’s rich MICE resources. This was achieved through a combination of interactive experiences and visits to sites that would bring event attendees in contact with Hangzhou’s unique local features, among them, the China National Silk Museum, cruises on West Lake, tea-picking in Longjing Village and yacht racing. Hangzhou Tourism Commission, for the first time, ran an “overseas” event in parallel in Paris, France, at which they set up at various high-traffic locations within the city, the Hangzhou Reception Room and the Hangzhou Mobile Conference Room, two pop-up venues that were able to give European-based conference organizers a chance to experience the Chinese city without needing to make the several-thousand-kilometer journeys. Paris was chosen for this simultaneous event as the city and consistently holds the ranking as the number one MICE destination according to the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA). Several events were conducted that allowed attendees in Hangzhou to communicate and interact with their counterparts in Paris. At the end of the event, a banquet and sharing session was held at Hangzhou International Expo Center, the main venue of the G20 summit. At the meeting, conference organizers from several countries had in-depth exchanges with executives from local companies in Hangzhou. Many of the organizers expressed their intent to choose Hangzhou as the venue for one of their future events.
“Hangzhou, Inspiring New Connections” is an innovative example of the kind of cross-border and cross-sector collaboration that has been made possible as a result of the efforts of Hangzhou’s MICE sector. Hangzhou plans to continue expanding its integrated conference destination marketing efforts, to further promote the city’s global strategy and transform itself into one of the world’s preferred destinations.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales. She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
