Management agencies have no strategy, businesses are 'groping'

Still growing strongly

At the seminar "MICE Tourism: Trends and Opportunities" organized by the Vietnam Tourism Association and the MICE Tourism Club (VMC) on the afternoon of September 14, Mr. Vu The Binh, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, commented that in the past 2 years, MICE tourism (tourism combined with conferences, seminars, exhibitions, event organization,...) has exploded in countries around the world .

For Vietnam, in 2022, this activity will be more bustling than all other types of tourism . This will be the main activity of Vietnam tourism in the future.

Typically, at Saigontourist Travel Service Company, in the third quarter of this year alone, it served a total of more than 40,000 domestic and foreign MICE tourists. Of which, the number of domestic MICE tourists reached 32,180. Visitors in Ho Chi Minh City accounted for the majority of this number, with more than 50%.

Vietnamese companies increasingly prefer to organize tours combined with events, conferences, seminars... abroad (Photo: Saigontourist)

Mr. Tran Quoc Bao, Deputy General Director of the company, assessed this as quite an impressive growth rate, with 10% compared to the same period last year. In addition to increasing the number of groups, the size of each group also increased significantly, up to thousands of people (such as going to Ho Tram, going to Phan Thiet).

Medicine, pharmaceuticals and banking and finance are the two sectors with the most companies organizing event and conference tourism; the retail sector has almost none, and factories producing goods have also cut back on orders this year due to low orders - the survey results were conducted right at the seminar, with the participation of hundreds of travel companies and MICE tourism service units.

Ms. Le Hanh, CEO of Vietluxtour Hanoi, commented that in addition to small and medium groups, there are still very large groups of guests. With economic difficulties, customers are tightening their spending, but there are still businesses that set aside budgets for MICE tourism to train culture, core values, dedication and contribution to the community and destination.

Notably, “costs are cut but tourist groups have high demands on services and make decisions close to departure time - these are challenges for MICE tourism,” said Ms. Hanh.

Fierce competition

Regarding inbound MICE groups (foreign visitors to Vietnam), Dr. Trinh Le Anh, Vice President of VMC, informed that before the pandemic, travel companies calculated that the average number of MICE guests accounted for 20-30%, even at large enterprises in peak months reaching 60%. Of which, European MICE guests accounted for about 20%, identified as high-end guests, spending 700-1,000 USD/day; Asian guests spent about 400 USD/day.

Post-Covid-19, Vietnam has a lot of room for development, especially MICE tourism, a high-quality and potential tourist stream.

More than 500 Indian tourists came to Ho Chi Minh City under MICE tourism (Photo: PLO)

However, the CEO of Fantasea Travel (a company specializing in welcoming Asian guests), Mr. Dao Viet Long, commented that doing MICE tourism for domestic customers is difficult, and for inbound customers it is even more difficult. Because businesses not only compete in terms of destinations and cities, but also in terms of domestic competitors, the success rate is very difficult.

After Covid, tourism recovered, he noticed some good signals from nearby markets for MICE tourism such as Malaysia, Singapore, India... But recently, due to the impact of the global economic recession, Vietnam has faced fierce competition for destinations from strong MICE tourism markets such as Thailand, even China.

Mr. Long cited that while Vietnam has just issued a flexible visa policy since August 15, such as issuing e-visas to citizens of all countries/territories, increasing the length of stay to 90 days; extending to 45 days for citizens of visa-exempt countries,... Thailand has also exempted visas for 5 months for Chinese visitors, since September.

But on the other hand, through a bad practical experience, having to struggle to rent an LED screen at an "astronomical" price when organizing an event for 300 Vietnamese guests in Bali (Indonesia), Mr. Do Van Thuc, CEO of Dat Viet Tour, has an optimistic and positive view on the future and prospects of MICE tourism in Vietnam. He believes that prices in Vietnam are very competitive.

“We have a system of very large and beautiful conference rooms in the hotel. MICE tourism with groups of 1,000 people or less, the infrastructure in Vietnam can meet. Not to mention, in Vietnam, everything is required, it is more professional,” he said.

Lack of connection, groping

Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, commented that MICE is a breakthrough field, leading the development of Vietnam tourism.

International visitors come to Vietnam not only to travel, explore, and relax but also to find partners and develop business (Photo: Datviettour).

However, the development of MICE tourism requires synchronization of policies and strategies. Up to now, we have not had a separate strategy for the development of MICE tourism. In Vietnam, businesses do it themselves, and state agencies are "trying to figure it out" while MICE tourism requires synchronous connections and the participation of localities, businesses, and communities. Along with that are support policies.

“Vietnam has almost no statistics or in-depth research on tourism types and the MICE tourism market,” said Mr. Tuan.

From a business perspective, Mr. Dao Viet Long expressed that because there is no market data, his company has to grope around, relying mainly on imagination and experience... Therefore, input data is needed for businesses to have a comprehensive view and more accurate assessment.

Forecasts show that the potential of global MICE tourism is huge, bringing in revenue of 1,400 billion USD in 2025 compared to 800 billion USD in 2019, with two bright spots being Europe and Asia - Pacific, so all countries pay attention.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has only exploited a small part of this type of tourism.

“High professionalism is the most essential factor for MICE tourism in Vietnam today; in addition, connectivity and strict selection of destinations and products are required as MICE tourism increasingly targets high-end customers,” Mr. Trinh Le Anh emphasized.

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