Kahini Chakraborty – Mumbai
The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is working on introducing new products, programmes and destination experiences for the Indian MICE segment. In the first half of this fiscal year from October to March, India has been ranked number one in terms of being the MICE market to Thailand. Nooch Homrossukhon, acting director, meetings and incentive department, TCEB said, “India has been our top priority market. We are looking at positioning Thailand in a unique way that does not only attract mass leisure or incentive groups, but also provide affordable luxury and premium MICE experiences to Indian travellers. We are looking at offering new destinations like Chiang Mai, Krabi, Koh Samui, Khao Lak, Hua Hin and more.”
From the corporate sector, TCEB has been seeing MICE business generation from industries like insurance, pharmaceutical, textile, FMCG, telecom. While from the travel trade, apart from established players like Cox & Kings, SOTC, Kesari, Thomas Cook, etc, there has been a lot of growth of mid sized companies. Nitin Sachdeva, representative in India, TCEB informed, “We want to enter into the Tier II cities where mid sized corporates are growing. Apart from 65 per cent of MICE business coming from Mumbai and Delhi, there are now regional based corporates who are the decision makers in Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. The south India market has increased its MICE share in the last five years. We are trying to not only educate agents from the major cities but also from Tier II and satellite towns.”