Global MICE Forum, an event originating in Western Europe that spreads internationally

In this framework, Travel2latam had the opportunity to talk with Andrés Merino, General Director of Global Mice Forum, about the organization of the event, objectives and presence of relevant actors.

What does this event mean to you? How was the organization?

In October of this year we began a path to build bridges between Europe and America in the meetings and events market. This event has been exclusively Spanish in terms of supply and demand. 

The buyers, who are the meeting event planners, are mainly from Madrid, Barcelona and Costa del Sol. And the suppliers, representatives of the meeting and event tourism offer throughout Spain, are from the north, south, center, and the big cities, the coast, the interior and the entire value chain. We have hotels, hotel chains, companies: audiovisual production of technology, catering, production of events and experiences, which come from all over Spain.

With this event, of around 120 people, half buyers and half sellers, we closed the year with very good feelings. 2023 is the year that we will always remember as our first step towards Latin America. The October event in the Mexican Caribbean began a round trip that has been exclusively for the Spanish national market. But next at the end of January in Portugal we will have the first event in Europe in which we will invite 25 hosted buyers from all over America, such as the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. While another 55 will be from Europe. 

What is the exact date of this event?

From January 21 to 23 at the Palacios Toril hotel in Cascais. And it is an edition that we call Luxury Edition because the profile continues to be the meetings industry market, but in this case the hosted buyers are buyers with high purchasing power for luxury events and high-level incentives.

Going back to today, what is the edition number of this event?

We have had 42 editions including the Mexican Caribbean one. The previous 41 were always in Spain and Portugal. We were born as Iberian Mice Forums because we presented the Mice offer of Iberian destinations, Spain and Portugal. And next year, precisely to make the leap to the Americas, we rebranded Global Mice Forums to cover other markets.

From a results point of view, do you have a final evaluation of what number of meetings were held and what business profile was generated?

Of course, we have the metrics of everything that happened at the event and we have very valuable information. Before starting it, we collect the purchasing power of each guest hosted buyer. That is, the average annual expenditure for your events. We also collect the number of events and attendees. We have that previous profile. 

During the event the meetings take place, the "one to one" between buyer and seller and at the end we do an evaluation questionnaire, not only of the quality and satisfaction of the event, but also of the business generated. Obviously in mice, the results are not seen in the short term, but we strategically generate a question about whether they see real business potential, and we ask the suppliers the opposite question. 

We cross-reference this data and it gives us an approximate statistic of the purchase intention and how many events can materialize. It gives us an indication of attendee satisfaction and business potential in the short-medium term.

We're talking about 42 events in total over how many years?

12 years in Spain and Portugal. We started this adventure in 2011 with smaller, more regional movements. But then we expanded to all of Spain and Portugal. And now we have extended to America, next year we will have two events with this profile. January in Portugal, in Cascais, and in November in Malaga, on the southern coast. And, of course, we will repeat the event in the Mexican Caribbean, at the Fairmont Mayakoba as the Headquarters hotel. 

What are the main markets in LATAM?

Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador…

What was the result of the Cancun event held in October?

I must be honest and we have not yet done the post-event metrics that we plan to do three months after the end. Re-surveying both buyers and suppliers who attended Cancun will be done in January due to the business generated. As I said, we ask right at the end of the event and we ask after three and six months because the still photo at the end of the event is not enough. But, I already say that without those metrics, the result has been exceptional. 

From the buyers closest to us, which are the Spanish, we brought 14 or 15 accounts from the best incentive agencies to the event. I have already closed a group, for example, Liberty Seguros Event Manager. Premium Incentives is another of the very good agencies that attended and has agreed to attend Kempinski Hotel Cancún, an annual convention for one of its best clients in the spring of next year.

We are receiving very good feedback. The only pending issue for this event in its Latam Edition is to make it more global. 2024 will once again be in the Mexican Caribbean, but we are working so that in 2025 it can be in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama or Miami itself. In these next editions it must necessarily grow and we believe that between now and September 2024 the offer of participating destinations will increase.