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Beyond just MICE: Korean companies innovating the industry with digital solutions

Published: 24 Dec. 2024, 17:06

YIM SEUNG-HYE
[email protected]

Award recipients who have shown excellent results after being selected for this year's ″Smart MICE Revitalization Project″ pose for a photo during the awards ceremony at the Andaz Hotel in Gangnam District on Dec. 17. [KOREA TOURISM ORGANIZATION]

EzPMP is a company that specializes in MICE, which stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, a type of tourism that brings together large groups for business events or retreats. This year, it developed an AI assistant named LeadX, which will help visitors as well as exhibitors at international exhibitions like the annual trade show CES, receive “all the help they need to navigate large exhibition halls, work out the routes to save time, make appointments and create meeting minutes.”

In fact, Ryu Doo-young, the team leader who worked on developing the AI assistant at EzPMP said what triggered his team to come up with creating LeadX was its visit to CES in Las Vegas early this year. After witnessing only VIP participants getting all the help they needed while many others were left wandering around the venue in awe of its scale, Ryu said his team was determined that to make EzPMP “a MICE specialist that creates tools for everyone.”

“The reason for creating the assistant came from the idea that every participant at an international exhibition deserves VIP-level service,” Ryu said.

A screen capture of EzPMP's website [SCREENCAPTURE]

According to EzPMP, LeadX provides tailored recommendations for exhibition booths and programs based on participants’ occupations and interests, offers navigation assistance and even features a personalized event reporting tool.

To develop the AI program, however, the company needed help. Then came the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) as a matchmaker. After being selected as a MICE company for this year’s “Smart MICE Revitalization Project,” EzPMP received a total of 100 million won ($69,000) in funding and was matched with an information and communication technology (ICT) firm that could provide it with the desired services.

The KTO’s "Smart MICE Revitalization Project” was launched last year to support the digital transformation of MICE companies to enable them to respond rapidly to “external business environment variables and secure sustainable global competitiveness.” A total of 30 MICE companies were selected to receive the KTO's matchmaking benefit and funding this year — with 18 companies in the Innovative category receiving 100 million won and 12 in the Regular category receiving 30 million won.

Last year, Korea hosted 423 international events, according to data compiled by the International Congress and Convention Association. The country ranks second in the Asia-Pacific region after Japan, which hosted 488 events. Seoul Metropolitan City was also named the Best MICE City for the 10th consecutive year by Global Traveler, a U.S. magazine for business travelers. Seoul has hosted a number of major international events this year, including the League of Legends World Championship and the city's SeoulCon. This year, the city government said it also secured bids to host 31 international conferences, including the 2026 World Conference on Lung Cancer, which is expected to attract around 8,000 attendees.

Since Korea is continuing to receive the spotlight globally when it comes to hosting international events — which often lead to visitors going on casual trips around the country before and after — the KTO said it’s crucial for the government to help local MICE companies make sure visitors have a state-of-the-art experience while in Korea.

On Dec. 17, the KTO held an awards ceremony at Andaz Seoul Gangnam in southern Seoul to acknowledge five companies, among the 30 that have received the benefits this year, for making great achievements. EzPMP was one of those in the Innovative category.

The KTO says it has supported 54 MICE companies in the last two years and that 46.3 percent of them were projects involving developing and upgrading platforms, user interfaces and user experiences, followed by 22.2 percent for AI adoption and 16.7 percent for ICT solution implementation.

A screen capture of The Pict's website [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Another MICE company in the Innovation category that received an award on Dec. 17 was The Pict. Through the project, it developed a privacy-protecting smart service by combining AI and optical character recognition (OCR) technology. According to the company, this technology extracts only the necessary information from IDs and business registration certificates, while immediately discarding the originals.

CEO Jeon Chang-dae of The Pict said that the “solution eliminates the need for manual data entry, which traditionally required multiple staff members,” adding that it is appealing to other global MICE companies looking for more secure solutions when it comes to holding such large-scale international events. In September, the company signed an agreement with the Vietnam-based Onebimvn to work together in developing an OCR AI certified platform for exhibitions to be held in Vietnam.

A screen capture of GW Pacific's website [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A screen capture of Intercom's website [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Three more MICE companies that were awarded at the ceremony were Intercom, which newly developed an enterprise resource planning solution featuring big data and an AI-powered responsive web and mobile event website. The company said that despite reducing its workforce, its task processing speed has more than doubled and the time spent handling inquires has also been cut by over 80 percent.

A screen capture of KNC's website [SCREEN CAPTURE]

As for KNC, it developed ShowGuide K, which is a tool for analyzing visitor behavior at exhibitions and said it plans to use the data collected for future event planning and operations.

GW Pacific introduced the Glocal Plus platform, featuring a voice-recognition AI that provides detailed information about nationwide MICE events and recommends events tailored to different users. The platform also includes an online marketplace, Unique Mall, which sells participating companies’ products.

Jung Chang-wook, executive director of the Korea MICE Bureau at Korea Tourism Organization speaks during the awards ceremony of the ″Smart MICE Revitalization Project″ at Andaz Hotel in Gangnam District on Dec. 17. [KOREA TOURISM ORGANIZATION

Jung Chang-wook, executive director of the Korea MICE Bureau at the KTO, said that the adoption of AI in this year’s project increased by 20 percent compared to last year, which signals the arrival of the “AI era in the MICE industry.”

“It’s satisfying to witness that 70 percent of the companies that have received the support from this project organized by the Korea Tourism Organization have actually applied the developed technologies at actual events,” Jung added.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [[email protected]]