John Ross is a Nadi-based marketing and advertising specialist with a long background in tourism. For feedback on this article, please email him: johnrossfiji@gmail.com

MICE is the name given by tour­ism professionals worldwide to describe a segment of the tourism market made up of four different but loose­ly connected groups of tourists.

It is an acronym made up of the initial let­ter of a word that describes each of these groups, so it includes Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events.

Probably the most interesting group is the Incentives Market.

This comprises a group of professionals who are responsible for putting together re­wards for employees of companies and the trip is earned by each employer performing to a target set n by the company.

Many companies (or groups of companies) have an internal department responsible for creating a trip that will excite employees so that they will put in the extra effort needed to earn the reward.

These are usually lavish events with con­tent that makes the experience so memorable that employees will perform year after year to win a place in the group.

There are also a number of specialist con­sultant groups who are very experienced in creating this type of event and they are sought after by the different destinations to try to encourage them to send business there.

The meeting segment, particularly in Fiji, is dominated by government and government associated entities or multi-national busi­ness groups.

The conference segment is also very large and comprises government and large busi­ness groups.

Each segment, while being grouped under the MICE banner, has its own special needs and objectives and each relies on the exper­tise of the professional organisers.

It is this group that has a significant influ­ence on the destination chosen and the local services providers that get the business.

The organisers business is built on their reliability and they can’t risk mistakes that may cause loss of repeat business so they end to stay with the local suppliers they know.

Why is the MICE market so attractive?

Firstly, the market is very well organised. It is basically a market run by profession­als offering the sort of services they know their clients want, they know their clients and work with them long-term to ensure the success of the event they are organising for them.

The clients trust their consultants and have often worked with them for a long time; they rely on their advice and will allow them to as­sist.

Because of this relationship it is easy for the tourism product suppliers, most of the hard decisions are taken on the advice of the consultant and there is usually very little change once the decision is made.

Planning usually starts a year before the event and everything can be carefully set up and all the components are confirmed early.

The buyer is open to ideas to improve the event and will commit additional budget for a standout idea.

MICE events are usually not particularly time sensitive so can be planned for destina­tion low seasons, helping the suppliers in the destination by filling unutilised inventory, they are not particularly price sensitive and will not try to cut costs at the expense of the experience.

The MICE market is very cohesive and these generalities apply across the board, but within the market each segment has its own peculiarities and needs and these need to be addressed.

For example, the Meetings segment is gen­erally very location focussed, with areas of varying capacities and scales required at dif­ferent times, while the Events segment usu­ally has a single location focus.

To become a major supplier in the MICE market a company needs to be of quite a large scale, very well equipped with material and infrastructure to handle a wide range of roles and creative in the development of their concepts and offerings.

MICE groups are generally fairly large in numbers, although there are some signifi­cant exceptions, particularly in the higher end and more specialised meetings segment.

Consultants expect the execution to be flaw­less, as many times this is a one off experi­ence for the participants and suppliers need to be able to ensure that they can provide suf­ficient transport, supervision and planning to assure the consultant they can handle the task.

And this is where Rosie Holidays comes into the picture.

About Rosie Events

Rosie is the leading operator in the high val­ue international meetings and incentives in­dustry in Fiji and has invested in a new state of the art warehouse.

It is located at the Namaka Industrial Sub­division, Nadi.

It will be the central operational headquar­ters for Rosie Events, their division focussed on the operational side of the services for the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhi­bitions (MICE) market.

In a company with many “firsts”, this is an­other one, the first multi-purpose three sto­rey complex to be built in Fiji to cater for the growing and lucrative overseas meetings and incentives market.

The President, Retired Major General Jioji Konrote was the chief guest at the official opening in Nadi last Friday.

The new warehouse will allow Rosie to pro­vide dramatically increased services to the hotels and resorts in Fiji who cater to the MICE market, providing storage in one loca­tion of over 250,000 different items and props that Rosie deploys as part of their events theming and management services.

The cost of the land and building was $3 milion and the equipment was an additional $2 million making a total investment of just over $5 million.

Feedback: maraia.vula@fijisun.com.fj