MICE

Meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE, with the “E” sometimes referring to events^[1] and the “C” sometimes referring to conventions) is a type of tourism in which large groups, usually planned well in advance, are brought together for a particular purpose. Recently, there has been an industry trend towards using the term 'meetings industry' to avoid confusion from the acronym.^[2] Other industry educators are recommending the use of "events industry" to be an umbrella term for the vast scope of the meeting and events profession.

Most components of MICE are well understood, perhaps with the exception of incentives. Incentive tourism is usually undertaken as a type of employee reward by a company or institution for targets met or exceeded, or a job well done. Unlike the other types of MICE tourism, incentive tourism is usually conducted purely for entertainment, rather than professional or education purposes.^[3]

MICE tourism usually includes a well-planned agenda centered around a theme or topic, such as profession trade organization, a special interest group or an education topic. Such tourism is often a specialized area with its own exhibition (e.g., IMEX,^[4] EIBTM,^[5] GIBTM,^[6] AIBTM,^[7] CIBTM.^[8] and AIME^[9]) and practices