The Korea MICE Roadshow, organized by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO Jakarta), recently took place in Jakarta, Indonesia. This annual event aims to promote Korea as a destination for MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions) tourism to Indonesian travel agents, businesses, and media.
The KTO Jakarta recorded 8,000 MICE visitors from Indonesia in the first half of 2023, which is a recovery of around 62 percent compared to the first half of 2019 before the pandemic. One significant contributor to this figure was a large MICE tourism group of 1,700 visitors from Allianz Indonesia, an insurance company. The KTO Jakarta hopes to further increase the number of MICE visitors from Indonesia and reach pre-pandemic levels this year.
The KTO Jakarta is under the supervision of the Korean Embassy in Indonesia and works closely with the KTO Jakarta headquarters in Gangwon-do, Korea, under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. Before the pandemic, Korea ranked as the second-best country in the world for hosting international events, and the Indonesian market has shown enthusiasm for the Korean MICE industry, ranking second in ASEAN for the highest number of visitors to Korea for MICE events.
The Korea MICE Roadshow 2023 was a significant step by Korea to revive its MICE tourism sector, specifically targeting businesses from the Indonesian MICE market. The event brought together representatives from local businesses such as convention centers, travel agents, and hotels with their counterparts from various regions in Korea. This allowed participants to explore networking and relationship building opportunities to promote Korea as a MICE destination to their customers.
According to Hani Fadia Zahra, the MICE manager at KTO Jakarta, they have already exceeded their target for this year and have had around 10,000 Indonesians travel to Korea for MICE events as of August. The Korea MICE Roadshow 2023 highlighted the strong interest of the Indonesian market, especially Jakarta, in hosting MICE events in Korea.
Overall, the efforts of the Korea Tourism Organization’s Jakarta office and the Korea MICE Roadshow aim to boost MICE tourism from Indonesia to Korea and help the industry recover from the impacts of the pandemic.