Global Traveler cites Seoul as best MICE city in the world

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Global Traveler cites Seoul as best MICE city in the world

Published: 08 Dec. 2022, 17:11 Updated: 08 Dec. 2022, 17:13

Last year’s Seoul MICE Alliance meeting, a public-private coalition to enhance Seoul’s MICE industry [YONHAP]

Voters chose Seoul as the Best MICE City of 2022 for the eighth year in a row in Global Traveler, a U.S. magazine for business travelers.

MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, a type of tourism that attracts large groups of people for business gatherings or retreats.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul was selected this year’s Best MICE City at the 19th annual GT Tested Reader Survey Awards held in Los Angeles, California, on Tuesday evening.

Dubai won second place, followed by Singapore.

Global Traveler has been hosting the awards every year to determine the best in a variety of travel-related categories, including MICE cities, airlines and hotels since 2014.

For this year’s survey, the magazine accepted ballots from Dec. 14, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022.

The magazine did not comment on why Seoul was chosen as the best MICE city in the world.

“Most subscribers of the magazine are organizers or planners of MICE events,” Cho Soo-jin, head of the MICE policy team at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “Among the businessmen who voted for Seoul, some may have visited and got good impressions of the city, while those who haven’t visited [but still chose Seoul] would have thought our city does well [in organizing MICE events] or they want to come and see.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has been ramping up its MICE ambitions to get more people to visit the city.

With the Covid-19 pandemic winding down, Seoul announced a budget of 2.7 billion won ($2.04 million) to promote itself as a safe environment for events.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government unveiled a so-called MICE mid-term development plan in November. Under the plan, the city pinpointed Jamsil in southern Seoul; Magok-dong in western Seoul; and Seoul Station in central Seoul as major sites for the new MICE clusters. It will build more convention and exhibition centers and shopping malls through 2030.

Following its nomination as the world's second most prolific host city of international conferences by the Union of International Associations (UIA) in June, 23 new international conferences picked Seoul as their venue this year. This includes the 2024 Asian Pacific Congress of Nephrology, with around 3,500 people expected to attend, and the 2026 International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders, involving about 6,000 people.

“It is an honor to announce that MICE experts around the world have chosen Seoul as the best MICE city,” said Choi Kyeng-ju, director-general of the Tourism and Sports Bureau at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. “We will actively support the MICE sector to grow into a key industry that drives regional innovation and industrial development.”

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]