The global MICE industry is estimated to be upwards of US$800 bn and India’s share pre covid was estimated to be around 1% despite the natural and cultural advantages of India as well as India being one of the highest growing economies.
In each vertical of MICE, be it meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions, the recall value of the Indian MICE is considered low. The sector requires a clear roadmap to undertake various measures to tackle pressing challenges of the MICE segment. MICE sector has the strongest direct correlation to the GDP, more than any other tourism sector. It contributes to income generation and creates huge employment opportunities, provides an impetus to hospitality services including sectors like accommodation, food and beverages, convention services, transportation, tourism, and entertainment.
Thus, our first objective post covid, in medium term, would be to double our MICE share to 2.5% of the world and then doubling it over medium to long term. Our goal should be to position India amongst the top 10 in the world from 28th rank pre-covid in the global international congress associations rankings. We had only one city amongst the top 100 cities in the pre-covid time. We should strive to have atleast three cities in the top 100 in the medium -term post covid and 6 – 10 cities in top 100 in the medium-to-long term.
We need to recognise MCIE tourism as a distinct business segment and create MICE India Brand a sub- brand to the ‘Incredible India’. We must target global congress, conventions and conferences, and social events. There is a need to create a global MICE bidding fund with a corpus of Rs 500 crores to enable our entrepreneurs undertake techno-economic bids for events which have a bid cycle of 2+ years.
We also need to create City Convention Bureaus in each of our main cities which will work with India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) as their nodal point to carry out a global bidding activity.
States should accord the industry status to MICE infrastructure so that more convention centres and hotels come up to serve the MICE sector. This will enable power and utility rates levies at Industrial rates as well as other benefits. Currently, infrastructure status for financing of MICE infrastructure is available only to 3 – star and above hotels located outside the cities with population of 1 million and above.
There is also a need of institutional support for MICE events. The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) is already working towards creating enabling conditions and institutional framework at the central, state and city level for the growth of MICE industry.
ICPB as Bureau acts as an agent, representative, marketer, leader and coordinator for MICE Industry. The Ministry will work with states to develop data collection and analysis mechanism for MICE Industry.
In the post – Covid era, we also need to incentivize Indian corporates to organize domestic MICE to prevent them from going abroad. For this, we need to offer a 200% weighted income tax benefit to Indian companies which are organizing MICE events in India.
We also need to enable IGST for our hotels which will complete the end-to-end GST chain and companies get GST setoffs for undertaking MICE events in states other than their state of registration. Moreover, our GST rates are one of the highest in the world and to revive the sector, we should move immediately to a 12% GST rate for all MCIE related events with full set offs and gradually to below 10% in the medium term with full set offs.
We look forward to a mega tourism zone which should be fully integrated as world class MICE city under the Special Tourism Zones being planned by the Ministry.
Also, to promote India as MICE destination, there is need to improve the competitiveness of Indian MICE with global markets. This will help attract Inbound MICE business and help retain outbound MICE business.
By Amaresh Tiwari, Vice Chairman, India Convention Promotion Bureau
