The Changes With-Corona Will Bring to the MICE Industry
The Changes With-Corona Will Bring to the MICE Industry
Hello, this is Chris & Partners.😊 On November 1, 2021, the With-Corona era opened in Korea too. Many of you have probably been waiting for it. Vitality is now flowing back into the domestic MICE industry, which had stalled because of COVID! Today we'll look at With-Corona and the changes in the MICE industry afterward.
The start of With-Corona
‘With-Corona’—a word you can keep hearing a lot these days, right? With Corona means living together with corona. That is, as COVID drags on, it means recovering daily life by coexisting with it rather than ending it. You can take it to mean carrying on daily life while preventing COVID-19. For the sake of quarantine vigilance, preparations are underway to reorganize it into a total of three phases, in line with the official name ‘phased recovery of daily life.’ Once the Phase 2 reorganization begins, large-scale events also become possible, so as daily-life recovery is pushed forward step by step like this, it seems we'll see the MICE industry's various events held freely, online and offline.
What's the situation in the UK and Singapore, which implemented With-Corona first?
What situations are the UK and Singapore—which declared ‘With Corona’ ahead of other countries—going through? The UK took a more radical approach, declaring With-Corona by fully lifting quarantine rules, while Singapore gradually eased quarantine as a policy. First, in the UK's case, it failed to suppress the spread, but by developing and securing vaccines and rapidly raising the vaccination rate, it used a strategy of dismantling social distancing, and 79% of the population aged 12 and over is fully vaccinated. As a result, you could see an active event industry, with various offline events held—large-scale festivals, a soccer final, and more. However, the UK, which declared ‘Freedom Day’ last July and entered With-Corona, is seeing confirmed cases rise, so other quarantine rules are expected to emerge. Singapore was often cited as one of Asia's success cases in dealing with COVID. Singapore had maintained a strong suppression strategy with quarantine and social distancing, and last June, declaring ‘coexistence with corona’—saying it would lift future quarantine measures and manage COVID-19 at the level of the flu—Singapore drew worldwide attention. However, after implementing With-Corona, confirmed cases keep rising, placing it in the situation of strengthening quarantine measures again.
Over the past year, in the global MICE industry..
It's true the soaring MICE industry took a hit from COVID, but despite constantly changing policies and situations, the MICE industry's development continues. Entering 2021, alongside the start of vaccinations, countries worldwide prepared various strategies to recover the MICE industry. In particular, in Singapore's case, to spur the MICE industry's recovery and create business opportunities, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), in collaboration with the MICE industry, ran the SingapoReimagine MICE Virtual ShowSingapoReimagine MICE Virtual Show over two days, March 3–4, 2021. At the SingapoReimagine MICE Virtual Show, it ran live-streamed culture and leisure tours, live panel discussions with industry experts about Singapore pilot events, and also one-on-one virtual meetings between participants and about 40 key suppliers such as hotels, convention centers, and travel agencies. In the case of the US and Canada too, many events were converted to virtual events and held, and MICE activity was cautiously resumed in line with the event guidelines announced by each state government. As COVID-19 has not yet ended, you can glimpse the global MICE industry's efforts to hold events while thoroughly observing quarantine guidelines—mask-wearing, temperature checks, sanitizing stations, social distancing, and the like—during offline events.
Asia, the MICE industry's front-runner
Compared with other continents, Asia worked to gradually revitalize the MICE industry through the resumption of domestic tourism, and you can see it has built various platforms or services to keep sharing MICE information as offline events decreased. In Singapore, within a virtual 3D environment, event participants can easily explore a virtual exhibition hall with a mobile device and connect with exhibitors, and host organizations induced active participation through various programs offering quizzes and rewards. They are working to revitalize Singapore's MICE industry again and brand Singapore as a leading MICE destination. Thailand announced a strategy to revitalize international exhibitions, through which it seeks to cement Thailand's standing at the center of international exhibitions in Asia, and Hong Kong too is establishing additional government support and short- and long-term strategies to strengthen Hong Kong's competitiveness in the MICE industry. Currently, Asia's MICE industry, anticipating a resumption of travel after vaccination, is at the same time working to emphasize and promote the image of MICE destinations to gain a head start in overseas markets.
What will the MICE industry look like after With-Corona?
Even after With-Corona is declared, online/hybrid events are expected to continue.COVID accelerated the MICE industry's digital transformation, so IT companies rapidly developed video-conferencing systems and meeting technology. Also, as existing systems were rapidly upgraded, points needing supplementation were improved, and satisfaction with online events is on the rise. Hybrid events will continue even after COVID, and going forward, participants will likely want to choose offline/online participation.Accordingly, it's predicted to be important for the MICE industry to grasp when a hybrid event is suitable and when offline is suitable, and to move in step with changing technology and circumstances. Today we looked at the changes in the MICE industry along with With-Corona. The advance of digital transformation and meeting technology has brought diversity in event formats and participants' right to choose online/offline—and seeing this, it was a topic that made us truly feel an era unlike before has now opened, and that the MICE industry, too, has entered a new stage. Going forward, it'd be good to observe the constantly changing flow of the MICE industry while watching the events held after With-Corona.
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