World MICE Now -USA-
World MICE Now -USA-
Hello, this is Chris & Partners. 😊 The final runner in the <World MICE Now> series, exploring global MICE, is 🥁(drumroll)🥁 the USA! The USA is a country that has shown strength in the MICE industry to match the nation's scale! Let's find out how, before and after COVID, the USA is leading the MICE industry. 🔍
MICE on America
The USA is a country where it's easy to attract events such as various meetings and exhibitions, as many global corporate headquarters and international-organization headquarters and regional offices are located there. International-conference growth stalled with the strong showing of Asian countries like Singapore that entered the MICE industry, but the number of events held nonetheless stayed in the top tier. The USA's MICE industry has a very solid mainstay, Las Vegas—shall we take a closer look?
Selected as the USA's top convention city for 24 consecutive years, Las Vegas—Las Vegas was famous for casinos and entertainment facilities, but now it's a reliable breadwinner for the USA's MICE industry. If 85% of Las Vegas's income in the '80s was generated from casinos, currently more than 70% is revenue related to the MICE industry, it's said.
CES, the world's largest electronics exhibition held in Las Vegas every January, generates an economic effect of about 210 million dollars (about 250 billion won) during the exhibition period, which is an enormous scale. Besides CES, as of 2018, Las Vegas attracted a total of 48 large conventions (international conferences) in a single year, and large and small meetings totaling about 24,000 were held annually. Like this, the USA showed the makings of successfully transforming into a MICE kingdom through Las Vegas.
America after Covid-19
So how is the USA's MICE industry proceeding after COVID? 🧐
Last year, the USA was counted as the country with the most COVID confirmed cases in the world. As a populous country, its number of infections was markedly high, and amid that pandemic situation, the majority of events were canceled or postponed. Because the USA had run such large and small, varied events, the scale of damage was serious—it was even pointed out that 96% of the US economy took a hit, with economic damage three times greater than during the 9/11 attacks.
The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the MICE-specialist fair IMEX America 2020, slated to be held in Las Vegas last year, were canceled, and the auto-parts exhibition AAPEX 2020 was converted to an online virtual exhibition. Besides these, various large and small meetings and events were canceled one after another. Amid such a tough situation, with active Digital Transformation underway due to COVID, offline events began to be held again online.
First, the home-appliance exhibition that draws the whole world's attention, CES, was held online this January. CES 2021 was a 100% online event held at the largest scale ever, with about 80,000 participants, it's said. Through fresh and varied attempts—such as grafting a metaverse platform to create virtual gathering spaces—it overcame the drawbacks of online events and achieved a successful event.
Also, in November IMEX America is slated to be held. The host, the IMEX Group, said it made the decision judging that, with vaccinations recently begun in the US and Europe, there's a high possibility herd immunity will be built by November. It makes us curious whether it can breathe life into Las Vegas once again.
Over three weeks we looked at the global MICE industry's past, present, and future—how was it? We hope a day comes when all countries going through this unprecedented, tough time recover their original lively form and can travel back and forth again. 😌🙏🏻 Are you planning a hybrid event running online and offline in parallel due to COVID-19? Prepare a satisfying event with Chris & Partners, a professional platform ready for in-person/contactless meetings, hybrid/virtual events, and digital marketing. 😉