Managing MICE visitors’ expectations beyond business activities

Ensuring consistency of service quality along the visit

All CVBs knows that hospitality management does not stop at the exit door of convention centres… Destinations’ efforts to improve their business infrastructure in the past decade have paid off, however other critical areas of the stay often remain a source of dissatisfaction deteriorating the overall opinion. The quality “ecosystem” for MICE visitors is complex and involves hundreds of contact opportunities before and after the time spent at the convention centres and only a few destinations are truly able to deliver the expected quality levels consistently throughout the visit.

Compared with global competition, European cities seem to offer high levels of satisfaction related to their business centres’ infrastructure (meeting rooms, venues, personnel hospitality, IT networks…) and their local transportation (airport access and hospitality, public transport…). However competitive gaps in quality appear in accommodation and food experience suggesting a demand for more diversified offer. The survey reports also that 1 MICE visitor out of 8 has complained about food service and quality, which makes catering the primary area of negative experiences during the visit.

The lack of quality consistency along the stay can also be measured in specific transverse topics:
• Local transportation in European cities is rated highly on many aspects with clear competitive advantages such as for public transport accessibility…but at the same time taxi services are significantly below the global competitive norm;
• Human hospitality is judged to be good in congress centres but remains insufficiently competitive – or poor– in accommodation, restaurants, public transport and Tourist Information Centres.

Addressing specific profiles and expectations of MICE visitors

Analysis of specific drivers of satisfaction and MICE visitors’ profiles clearly shows that, beyond the usual expectations related to strictly business activities (convention centre quality, accommodation, airport access convenience…), this segment also expects what any visitor would demand from a destination today with regard to issues such as feeling safe, the hospitality of local people and the environment (cleanliness, urban development and architecture…).

The need to deliver a completely positive experience along the visit is essential for destinations as MICE visitors are usually demanding frequent travellers (taking, on average, over 4 overseas trips per year). They are also more educated and engaged citizens with established, influential social networks, and are thus in a good position to shape the destination’s reputation.

Encouraging MICE visitors to enjoy leisure and cultural activities

Delighting MICE visitors “after or outside” the business activities is a challenge offering great opportunities for destinations to leverage their reputation in the leisure area as well. In fact, half of business visitors shop or engage in cultural and leisure activities during their stay. They even consume twice as much as the leisure segments in activities such as spa/wellness, gastronomic experiences or nightlife, resulting in more spending at the destination and possibly increased intention to come back for future leisure holidays.

European cities offer a rich historical heritage and a large range of leisure possibilities within a short distance and time frame, and certainly have lots to offer MICE visitors ‘after hours’. They therefore achieve excellent satisfaction indexes for the quality of cultural and leisure activities amongst the segment (193 vs. 153 for non European cities on average).

Conclusion: making the difference!

In summary the analysis suggests that:
1.    “material” business infrastructure as such is no longer enough to make a competitive difference in quality for MICE visitors (except of course for specific capacity issues for big events);
2.    Successful MICE destinations are those able to offer a consistently satisfying experience throughout the visit, beyond quality and hospitality provided at convention centres which remains only one part of the full trip experience;
3.    When managing all facets of hospitality, CVB must take account of core expectations expressed by all tourists, i.e. feeling safe and environmental issues in particular;
4.    Social programmes and cultural and leisure activities offered to MICE visitors clearly differentiate a destination from the competition and European cities have a clear advantage to make use of in the global competition mapping;
5.    …but they also need to improve the visitor experience in accommodation and catering to close the competitive gap that exists with other world cities.

This undoubtedly renders even more important the complex challenge for CVBs of acting through efficient stakeholder and partnership management in areas for which they are not directly responsible but which massively impact the MICE segment quality ecosystem.

Methodological note:
TRAVELSAT© Competitive Index is the global and independent reference survey benchmarking international tourists’ experience and satisfaction in a standard way for all destinations. It monitors 80+ satisfaction indexes for over 200 destinations, markets and segments, based on representative and controlled opinions of tourists who experience the destination. For this specific analysis, TCI Research analysed the responses of 2000+ visitors from 30+ markets having spent at least one night for meeting, incentives, congress and event purposes, in the top Euromed, North American, Asia Pacific, LATAM and MENA destinations.

Contact TCI Research: Olivier Henry-Biabaud: olivier.henry-biabaud@tci-research.com / www.tci-research.com