ON September 4-7, 2019, I was hosted as one of five international guests and the only Filipino at the China International Meetings Development Conference-Chengdu (CIMDC-Chengdu 2019) in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China’s Sichuan province.
The invitation came from the Amsterdam-based International Congress and Convention Association (Icca) and its members in Chengdu —the China Meetings Industry Convention (CMIC) and the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition (CMBE)—in my capacity as secretary-general of the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (Adfiap).
The event, attended by over
200 participants, was organized by CMIC, CMBE and the Dujiangyan Municipal
Government and was meant to present Chengdu in its entirety, together with its
people, culture, places, and culinary diversity, as a destination for
international business events through the city’s offerings of conference
facilities and business environment as a premier
convention hub.
It was my first time in Chengdu and I was pleasantly surprised and amazed by the array of MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, exhibitions) infrastructure facilities that the city is offering to the world—from small to huge meeting and exhibition spaces and more are still being constructed. So it’s no wonder that the city’s vision is to be the “international metropolis of the MICE industry.”
It has the statistics to prove it, too. According to the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Chengdu Council, in 2018, the city hosted 689 major events—of which 163 were international events—that used 10.27 million of total exhibition area which was attended by 106 million participants and that netted for its economy, RMB 109.19 billion (about $ 15.34 billion) in revenues.
So what makes Chengdu a good attraction for MICE activities? I can cite these factors using the acronym Pinnacle:
People (in government, business and social organizations) supporting each other;
Infrastructure (MICE facilities, communication and transportation systems);
Nature (green mountains, clean rivers and natural habitat for giant pandas);
Newness (of event designs, technology, and modern city redevelopment);
Accessibility (by air, land and rail transportation);
Culture (a famous cultural city with a recorded history of over 2,300 years);
Leisure (not only for pandas and spicy food but ancient irrigation systems, opera, etc.); and
Economy (a booming and modern business environment).
According to one report, Chengdu is already in the top 10 cities for meetings and events in the Asia-Pacific region. From what I saw and experienced while there, Chengdu is well on its way to the pinnacle of success in the MICE industry and to becoming the international MICE metropolis it aspires to be.
****
The column contributor, Octavio “Bobby” Peralta, is
concurrently the secretary-general of the Association of Development Financing
Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (Adfiap) and the CEO and founder of the
Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives. PCAAE is holding
the Associations Summit 7
on November 27 and 28, 2019, at the Philippine International Convention Center,
which is expected to draw over 200 association professionals here and abroad.
The two-day event is supported by Adfiap, the Tourism Promotions Board, and the
PICC. E-mail inquiries@adfiap.org for more details on AS7.
