DOT eyes 4-fold growth in MICE revenues

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Tourism (DOT) is eyeing to grow revenues of the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibition(MICE) industry by more than four-fold in 2030, with the launching of a roadmap.

Earlier this week, the DOT launched the MICE Roadmap 2030, which plants a more defined approach to growing the industry.

Based on the executive summary of the roadmap, the industry is eyeing to grow revenues generated by MICE market to P24.4 billion by 2030, an estimated 430 percent rise from the P4.6 billion registered in 2016.

In addition, the roadmap also targets the gross value added of MICE industry to increase to P1.4 billion by 2030, from P415.3 million in 2013 and an improvement of the average rate in delegate expenditure per meeting by 19 percent.

The DOT, however, emphasized that these targets may still be revised, based on the findings of sectoral working group to be formed by industry representatives.

“In the absence of official data, the baseline information and the targets will still be reassessed and refined by the Sectoral Working Group that will be formed by the MICE Roadmap Implementation,” the executive summary said.

Tourism Undersecretary Benito Bengzon Jr. said on average, the MICE industry generates more revenue compared to average visitor spending.

“Some people say, it’s easily double, some say it’s easily triple,” Bengzon said adding that the department has yet to find a way to collect the data.

“But that’s one of the things we have to work on so that we are able to generate precise data,” Bengzon said.

Based on latest available figures from the DOT total revenue generated by eight large scale MICE venues amounted to P 978. 5 million in 2015 and P970.2 million in 2016.

While the MICE roadmap has officially been launched, Bengzon said a sectoral working group is yet to set more defined targets for the MICE industry as well as identify the issues that needs to be addressed.

“The important thing here is that we have to have a strategic approach towards all our mice activity. We want to put a more definitive framework so that it doesn’t become simply a calendar of activities,” the tourism undersecretary said.

Moreover, the roadmap also aims to make the Philippines more competitive in the MICE market, targeting to make it the leading MICE destination in Asia Pacific and the Middle East. 

“For the meetings sector, this means rise in the country’s ICCA(International Congress and Conventions Association) rank from being 14th out of the 35 countries in the region in 2016 to being the top 10 by 2030 in terms of having the most number of meetings,” the DOT said.

In terms of worldwide ranking, the Philippine MICE market ranked 48th out of 116 countries in 2016.

The DOT also aims to grow the number of MICE arrivals by three percent every year until 2030.

At present, figures on MICE visitor arrivals are not yet available, according to the DOT. MICE arrivals share in tourist arrivals, however, are estimated at eight percent as of 2016. 

“Estimates are based on those who reported business, official, mission, convention and travel as purpose of visit,” the DOT said.