We need to recognise MICE tourism as a distinct business segment: Amaresh Tiwari

Speaking at the Indian Tourism Vision Day, Amaresh Tiwari, Vice Chairman of India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) highlighted that in order to grow double the MICE GDP share in the global economy, “We need to recognise MICE tourism as a distinct business segment and we need to create a sub- brand to the main brand Incredible India.”

Tiwari further explained that to target global congress, conventions and conferences, and social events, a global MICE bidding fund with a corpus for rupees 500 crore needs to be created to enable entrepreneurs to undertake techno economic bids for events which have a bid cycle of two years plus. 

The conference was organised by Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) – the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India (ADTOI, ATOAI, FHRAI, HAI, IATO, ICPB, IHHA, ITTA, TAAI, TAFI).

Talking about the other initiatives to promote Indian MICE industry, he said, “In the post - Covid era we also need to incentivize Indian corporates to undertake domestic MICE and to prevent Indian MICE events from going abroad. For that we need to offer 200 per cent weighted income tax expense benefit to Indian companies which are undertaking MICE events in India.

“We need to enable IGST for our hotels which will complete the end-to-end GST chain and companies get GST setoffs for companies undertaking MICE events in states other than their state of registration,” he added.

Concluding the address, Tiwari expressed that as virtual MICE has become the order of the day, “We look forward to each state recognising this and supporting virtual MICE on a structured and financial basis. We acknowledge the further easing of the MICE sector through Unlock 5 and look forward to demand generation measures to move towards our vision.”