The MICE industry: Will only the small survive?

Marina Bay Sands has introduced a state-of-the-art hybrid broadcast studio, complete with holograms and virtual reality, as it seeks to salvage its MICE business from the ravages of Covid-19. Designed to accommodate a live studio audience with a maximum capacity of 50 persons at any one time, the hybrid broadcast studio will offer broadcast-quality live-streaming capabilities. It’s also able to beam someone from a different part of the world ‘live’ into Singapore through a holographic presence. The studio is a forward-thinking example of how Asia’s MICE industry is seeking to reinvent itself in the wake of the pandemic. Las Vegas Sands, which owns MBS, boasts 5.2 square million of MICE space globally and has more in the plans for Singapore through its S$4.5 billion casino expansion plan.  Prior to the crisis, the island nation had been one of the most prosperous places for such large-scale events. According to the Singapore MICE Tourism Market Outlook and Projections, 2019-2027 report, published in early January just before the coronavirus began to hit the headlines, Singapore’s MICE tourism market had reached over US$2.5 billion in 2018 and was expected to grow to over $5.2 billion by the end of 2027. Singapore boasts world-class MICE infrastructure such as the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre, the Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, and Singapore Expo, as well as a large selection of convention hotels. However, many of these facilities have high operating costs, and some have been taking desperate measures to try to pay the bills. Singapore Expo, for example, leased out some of its space to the government to serve as a Covid-19 quarantine center. But minds have been focusing on what the MICE industry can still do in the Covid era, and perhaps ultimately to a post-Covid future Mike Lee, the Vice President of Sales for Marina Bay Sands, recently told the trade publication Conference & Meetings World that “while event organizers are working to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ industry players need to get creative, explore new initiatives, and build new partnerships.” Part of the “new normal” for conferences, of course, is the massive shift to digital formats and, increasingly, hybrid events blending smaller physical events with wider global participation through the internet. The Singapore Tourism Board has been encouraging the shift toward hybrid events combining on-site attendance of up to fifty people. They explained to the local media that such events are “likely to be the norm for business events in the near future.” Lee has further noted that one evolving role for the leading MICE operators is to offer customized packages for event organizers that integrate all of the latest technology but are presented in a way that is not overwhelming. Nevertheless, not everyone is convinced that the challenges faced by the MICE industry can be neatly overcome by creative thinking and rapid technological innovation. Daniel Cheng, former senior vice-president for hospitality and gaming development at Hard Rock International, tells Asia Gaming Brief, “We have to accept that the MICE business will not be what it was before, because travel is essential.” For the business model of Integrated Resorts, holding conferences was not just about the events themselves, but also about the hotel bookings of conference participants, tickets for the show, meals at the restaurants, and the spillover of visitors to the casinos. Neither digital events nor hybrid events gets the industry anywhere near to the pre-Covid situation. As for the giants of the MICE industry, Cheng notes that “they differentiated before by saying ‘we can do the biggest show and the biggest convention. You can’t go anywhere else if you want to have 5,000 people,’ but now they have to do the reverse and say ‘we’re going to have meetings and incentive dinners for twenty people,’ and package everything to a small scale for the local market.” If he is correct, it may be that the smaller creatures within the industry—those with the right technology and services but of limited scale—may have the survivability advantage. As the dinosaurs wither away from lack of sufficient sustenance, the mice may inherit the Earth.