Every day, all across the world, hundreds or may be thousands of industry trade fair and exhibitions take place. Each of these events attracts visitors in varying numbers from few hundreds to few thousands. These visitors can be clubbed very simply into a group or groups like managers, presidents CEOs/CTOs or middle level and senior level executive from a particular industry. But if we look closely, this group can be very diverse and dynamic. In the discussion below I am trying to bring out this very diverse or dynamic nature of these MICE travelers who are part of these exhibitions as visitors or exhibitors. We will look at what they represent in any particular exhibition and how this representation defines, groups and differentiate them.
Whatever the kind of events, people attending these show certain professional characteristics associated with them, certain aspects or quality. These characteristics are not just one or two but few, and each type of event reveal certain types of these characteristics. This also says that one single individual can attend different events but will always represent different set of his or her characteristics in these different events.
MICE travelers or visitors to an exhibition always attend events in certain capacities and play certain role. The type of event will again define their capacity type. People attend events in their business or professional capacity but also in personal capacity. MICE events are one of those types of travel where attendees travel for business and can also enjoy some personal leisure travel time. Often MICE travel is both, business and leisure & fun. MICE Industry covers various events with majority being industry events which are focused on business generation, business promotion and business networking attracts people in their professional capacities only. Their capacities related to such business events are more than one out of which the first one can be called or termed as their positions in an organization. In what capacity do they represent their organizations. Added to this is another capacity or role which is the capacity to take decisions. Under these two capacities they could play the role of an observer and intermediary for superiors; networking with peers; or to take decisions regarding business generation or generating sales lead. The decision making capacity and business generation role is usually attached with higher positions but in some cases and sometimes it can be specially granted to individuals where it is not generally a part of their position. Visitors can be CEO/CFOs/CTOs of a company; Presidents and Managing Directors; General Managers or managers; Marketing Heads or heads of other departments; and they could also be engineers or technical officers or marketing officers.