As the industry has adapted over the past year to new trends and methodologies for conducting events in multiple formats, the race to professionalize the MICE sector worldwide has accelerated .
According to the ranking of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), in 2019 Barcelona consolidated its fourth place in Europe in hosting international congresses. The Catalan capital has a wide variety of meeting spaces that year after year attract groups from all over the world to hold conventions, presentations or seminars.
Upgrading to professionalization
The events sector is linked to constant changes, it is all about adapting concepts such as innovation or wellness, meeting the high standards of quality and excellence of the clients. These changes are also directly related to the growing demand for new professional profiles in the sector.
A significant change can be found in the figure of the business traveler, we can speak of the phenomenon known as bleisure. The traveler who travels for meetings, combines his business trip with leisure activities, is looking for added value during his stay. Therefore, it is essential to adapt to market demand, in terms of services offered and characteristics of the spaces.
Innovation, a key element
2021 is a year of reactivation of the MICE sector; little by little, the face-to-face format that so many of us long for is being recovered. As Lobby Mice Catalunya points out, in recent months a change of scenery has begun to take place within the sector, and congresses have returned to formats very similar to the period before the health crisis caused by the Coronavirus.
However, new ways of holding events in full pandemic, such as virtual or hybrid meetings, are consistent formats of innovation that are here to stay in the MICE future. The implementation of innovation in the sector must continue for its professionalization and recovery.
Matthias Schultze, Managing Director of the German Convention Bureau gave a keynote speech related to the importance of applying innovation in the events sector at the GCB. It is about being open to changes and new implementations that allow the sector to progress and become more competent. It forcefully states that only open innovation (
open innovation
), in the current context, is the right way to achieve the objectives of the event community.
The professionalization of the sector has led us event experts to move forward and look for new disruptive ways. At Valkiria we are committed to the reinvention of events and we see the need for a new innovative design in which technology is the protagonist, without forgetting that it is an accelerator of transformation. The exponential advance of change in this sector will take place through the professionalization of MICE professionals.
