What is testing the resilience of the MICE sector?

Uncertainty, inflation, and a lack of personnel and ground transportation are challenges for this tourism segment

The MICE sector was one of the first to be affected by the interruption of activity imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, since then it has tried to return to normality and the path of profitability, although on its way there is a series of pitfalls, which GEBTA has identified for HOSTELTUR, and which compromise its proven resilience.

To the uncontrolled increase in costs forced by inflation, which also cannot be passed on to customers as budgets are closed well in advance, other factors are added such as “general uncertainty”, which encompasses various factors such as health security, the war in Ukraine or the effects of Brexit, among others.

And, largely as a result of the above, there is also a lack of personnel in the business travel sector, which affects not only the companies that make up the sector, but also its strategic partners, thus hindering the normal development of this activity since the beginning of the pandemic, in a situation that has not yet been resolved.

“With the last crisis, many companies retired experienced personnel, other key workers, seeking job opportunities, integrated into other sectors and have not returned. We need not only to retain talent, but especially to attract young talent and be aware of the enormous competitiveness of the labor market “, they have explained from GEBTA.

“We have problems with professional guides and of course we have difficulties to fill certain positions in our own companies with experienced personnel,” the event organizers have confessed. But, the obstacles on the road to normality that MICE intends to achieve in 2023 arise in the most unexpected places.

Little bus and rent-a-car

Thus, another of the difficulties detected by the sector employers affects land transport: “Many bus companies, like renters, have been very cautious with the purchases of new vehicles and this, added to the microprocessor crisis, has made the Demand exceeds supply and we must pay for expensive transportation, which on many occasions is also difficult for us to obtain,” the employers have remarked.

However, given the circumstances, it is also healthy to put yourself in the worst case: “In a more conservative scenario and with forecasts of high inflation environments, our forecast is that it will take us a little longer to reach the pre-pandemic recovery and we will have to wait until 2025 to reach the volume of events we had in 2019”, has estimated GEBTA.