One year and nine months have passed since the outbreak of COVID-19. The lifestyle of the people worldwide has rapidly adapted to one relying on digital technology. Drastic changes are gaining traction in the MICE industry, which has grown based on large-scale face-to-face gatherings.

Digital transformation is occurring rapidly in the MICE industry. Previous MICE events used to be mostly onsite large-scale face-to-face gatherings, while interest is growing for events held in a hybrid (online + offline) way.

In this era of digital transformation, MICE businesses strive to come up with a new form of strategy for customer experience. For starters, we can see movements for positive use of digital-based platform spaces. In step with these changes, MICE businesses are using online marketing to a noticeable extent.

Gyeonggi Tourism Organization (GTO) is also pushing forward with online marketing in a diverse way. Last April, Korean MICE businesses held Gyeonggi-do Online Travel Mart, which was a hybrid (online + offline) form of overseas marketing, as part of an effort to explore overseas tourism markets. This online mart event carried out a variety of programs including B2B online export meetings with 13 countries and B2B online/ B2C online live talk shows, etc. GTO also held On’tact day, an online showcase promoting Gyeonggi MICE industry by various ways such as Unboxing show, Vlog introducing Gyeonggi-do MICE facilities, and QnA session through real-time communication using comment section.

This year, GTO has also pressed ahead with marketing efforts through participation in online expos. It engages in MICE PR events held in the province directed at local and overseas buyers through positive participation in online/offline expos, such as IT&CM CHINA 2021 (for three days from June 22) (online), Korea International Travel Expo (KITE) (June 29 through July 13) (on/offline), IT & CMA 2021 Online Expo, and ITB Asia 2021 (for five days from October 25) (online expo).

Moreover, GTO is pushing ahead with online marketing through the production of Gyeonggi-do MICE online contents, utilizing social media, and newsletters.

As MICE businesses’ scope of online marketing broadens, KTO has started marketing, using mobile-based 3D avatar creation app ZEPETO aimed at teenagers and 20-somethings. ZEPETO is an app that lets you create a 3D animated version of yourself to use for in-app chatrooms, using facial recognition and AR technology, to enjoy social activities. Using this service, foreigners can spend time appreciating famous visitor attractions in Korea set up in the virtual space of ZEPETO and taking photos. Hands-on experience of virtual spaces like these are edited in diverse forms by visitors, uploaded to their personal social media account and shared with others through followers.
The Incheon Tourism Organization (ITO) also re-presented the appearances of the city in the online game Minecraft, which has more than 600 million members worldwide. That is, it launched Incheon Craft in which people can have a hands-on experience of the city under a virtual format.

The changes of MICE businesses into online marketing have diverse merits. For starters, online exhibitions have no physical boundaries and so you can encounter products and businesses of a specific industrial sector by connecting with them from anywhere. You can open the contents whenever you need without any time constraints. In addition, online expos are economical for participants and visitors as they do not require physical products, equipment, devices, and spaces/human resources. However, one thing should be kept in mind: abrupt platform conversion without common criteria or formats can make participants confused.

One important merit of an offline expo is that you can encounter a product or idea by chance, but you cannot expect such a thing in an online expo. In an online expo, you are likely to do things only within a fixed frame and see only products and technologies that you expect to see. You are likely to feel distant from media as you get information on products/technology only through the screen without a first-hand touch or feel. This is why we need to improve the issues related to product reliability, satisfaction with products, exchanges, technologies, and equipment, etc. that we face in an online event as opposed to first-hand interactions.

The core segment of the generation of consumers targeted by MICE businesses are the MZ generation, who freely and habitually make their own avatars, using diverse digital equipment from their youth. They may find it uncomfortable to spend a few days together with others and build social relationships. They are likely to be more comfortable building digital-based social relationships, having diverse hands-on experience through technologies, and forming a community in an online world without physical contact with each other. At the same time, the MZ generation has gotten used to these services providing incessant data-based information befitting their background.
Due to the accumulation of new experiences and appearance of a new generation during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is highly unlikely that the MICE industry reverts entirely to offline when the pandemic is over. We expect to see a new future of the MICE industry, where offline MICE events that provide customer experience, which online cannot provide, coexist with MICE events that can provide convenience and vivid online experience and create new things together.