SEOUL, KOREA - The government will help growth of MICE industies so that it can hold a total of 790 international conferences by 2018 and earn US$1.45 billion a year from the events.

 

This is part of a strategy to nurture the so-called "MICE" (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) industries to increase foreign visitors by 400,000 a year.

 

The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism said this on January 2 in the third basic plan to nurture international conference industry 2014-2018. In it, the ministry made clear the four basic strategies including (1) creation of a firm ecosystem for the international conference industry; (2) continuous maintenance of international conference demand; (3) nurturing of professional talents and institutional foundation for industry development; and (4) fusion of different segments within the industry.

 

With these plans, the government will increase the number of Union of International Associations-standard international conferences to 790 by 2018 from 563 in 2012. The earnings from these meetings will be doubled to $1.45 billion during the same period

 

In order to achieve these goals, the Tourism Ministry will strengthen the role of the Korea MICE Alliance and newly create consultative bodies at central and local levels to increase the government-private sector cooperation.