Comment: MICE Monster
For the average consumer, the word ‘MICE’ elicits little more than thoughts of furry critters and their desktop namesakes. But those in the industry know what a big deal it is — for hotels, restaurants, as well as the travel industry.
However, in the Caterer Middle East Food & Business Conference preview, we report that the UAE was ranked only 44th globally by the International Congress and Convention Association in 2013 for the MICE market - revealing there’s still a long way to go in the region.
JW Marriott Marquis director of culinary Sebastian Nohse concurred, telling Caterer earlier this year: “In the tourist market for leisure travellers, Dubai is in the top 10 cities in the world, but for MICE, we are nowhere up there, and that’s a real shift that needs to happen. With all the additional hotel rooms, we also need to feed both sides of the market - not just the leisure but MICE industry.”
Nonetheless, a recent study by management consultancy Strategy& showed that among the GCC countries, the UAE has the most “robust” MICE business — a situation, needless to say, bolstered by the role of Dubai International Airport in surpassing London’s Heathrow as the world’s busiest for international passenger traffic.
Strategy& senior partner Richard Shediac noted: “Only about 2% of all the exhibitions in the world take place in the Middle East, and only about 4% take place in South America. By contrast, Europe and North America, combined, are home to more than 80% of the world’s exhibitions.” Moving forward, he asserted: “This imbalance presents an opportunity for emerging markets, including the GCC to attract a large share of MICE business, if they improve their tactics in the meetings market.”
And one of these tactics is obviously the food and beverage offering. However, providing quality F&B on a large scale has similar challenges to a regular restaurant — from staff training to suppliers, and from sustainability to waste management — but these are amplified by whole orders of magnitude. In other words, a massive challenge.
But it can be done. I recently visited the Hilton Istanbul Bomonti Hotel & Conference Centre to attend the Hilton Worldwide EMEA F&B Conference and Masters competition, and executive chef Yannis Manikis certainly had his work cut out catering for more than 700 people during the gala dinner. Still, the quality and innovation of the dishes surpassed many large-scale event menus I’d seen before. I came away impressed.
And like Atlantis, The Palm Dubai SVP F&B Mark Patten said: “Remember, the MICE market light switch is back on again.” Are you ready?
Devina Divecha
Senior Editor - Hospitality Group
Email: devina.divecha@itp.com
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