JEJU WEEKLY

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NewsMICE
Green, key to survive ever-contracting MICE marketJeju well positioned to take advantage of trend towards sustainable conferences
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¡ã Hyosung booth at Korea Smart Grid Week. Photo courtesy Jeju Special Self-Governing Province

The heyday of corporate incentive tourism has come and gone. Go green, not because you can choose to do so, but because it is required to survive in the tough market. This is the key message I left with after attending the 2nd Jeju International Green MICE Week.

Key speakers repeatedly stressed action during the intensive three-day conference and for good reason. Sumate Sudasna, president of the Thailand Incentive and Convention Association disclosed some chilling data about the gloomy status of the Asian corporate incentive tour market.

The 1980 to 1990 golden years are over for corporate tourism. The latest trend among the industry’s movers and shakers is relentless belt-tightening, according to Sudasna’s observation. Clients are demanding Professional Conference Organizers (PCOs) to downsize their events while choosing conference destinations with shorter travel time. The coup de grâce for many PCOs in the industry is that corporate clients now plan their events themselves, bypassing agents now that they have access to local data which is readily available on the Internet.

“Technology eliminated the need for middlemen. Companies are doing events themselves,” Sudasna said. “The pure attraction of destinations alone would not be good enough today. Only those who understand customer needs and [can] adapt can survive.” “And when you prepare answers, make sure to design them tailor-made to each client.”

The trend towards short haul flights was obvious in choosing the destination, which is good news for Jeju. The island is just a two to three hour flight away from scores of vibrant economic centers in the region including rapidly growing Shanghai, Beijing and other Chinese mega-cities.

This trend as a result of downsizing and belt-tightening in the industry, combined with the green theme of the island’s corporate incentive tour sector bodes well for Jeju’s MICE industry. However, “green” as an empty slogan can backfire, cautioned Fei Yao, director of sales and account management at HRG China.

“If [the] only things you find in the island after hearing about ‘Green Jeju’ are lots of cars emitting carbon dioxide, visitors will be disappointed,” said Yao, advising the audience that the balance between green and profits is more important. In fact for many Chinese clients, “sustainability” is not the key issue when they plan future events, he said.

Asked if he sees Jeju as the nation’s future competitor, Jonathan Kan, president of Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organizers and Suppliers said “no,” adding that Asian destinations, by working together, can offer a variety of options to clients. He advised Jeju to look at the island from a big picture perspective to properly promote Jeju’s potential, but asked to differentiate its brand positioning among other competitive Asian MICE destinations.

Despite Sudasna’s prediction, Yi Wei Lu, country travel manager of Shanghai-based Novartis Pharmaceutical expressed his frustration about the difficulty in communicating directly with Jeju hotels. He could only get information about hotel deals from travel agencies, he said, with his attempts at contacting sales managers of the island’s top hotels usually ending up either without an answer or with insufficient information supplied.

Lu noted the island’s convenient proximity to key Chinese cities and lenient visa policy for Chinese visitors. The warm climate throughout the year, coupled with a safe atmosphere, makes Jeju’s appeal hard to ignore for Chinese visitors, he said.

“No matter how Jeju would succeed in attracting international clients,” warned Lee Jae Wook, vice manager of Singapore Tourism Board, “depending on the overseas clientele alone would limit the growth potential of the island’s MICE industry.”

Lee predicted that Jeju will need to have its own home-grown industrial base ultimately to jump start the MICE business. Hong Sung Hwa, Jeju MICE industry project director, couldn’t agree more. Hong believes that the island’s status as a test-bed for the nation’s carbon free economy has offered its MICE industry an unusual opportunity—a special themed tour around various green energy infrastructures, including a smart grid energy network. “In the future, the test-bed will function as an educational field trip site for relevant enterprises and students alike,” he told The Jeju Weekly.

Currently many Korean conglomerates including LG, GS Caltex, SK, POSCO and KEPCO are running their smart grid test facilities in the island. Governor Woo Keun Min also signed a deal for “Green Partnership” with the US state of Illinois during Korea Smart Grid Week held earlier this month.

Im Young Hong, director of Japan National Tourism Organization and the Japan Convention Bureau, wrapped up Green MICE Week with very pertinent advice to the audience. The first step to attract Japanese corporate clients to Jeju is to collect “down to earth” data about their needs, he said. The best way to acquire such information is to network with some leading Japanese PCOs.

He warned, however, that real information essential to the Jeju’s marketing and sales effort will never be found in the document or corporate brochure but through countless informal contacts with key industry movers and shakers.

The 2nd Jeju International Green MICE Week proved that “green” can be a compelling marketing theme for Jeju in the increasingly cash-strapped MICE industry that is also trying to meet its goal of sustainability.






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