MICE tourism sees boom in Sri Lanka amid recovery from economic crisis

Monday, February 13, 2023

The island nation Sri Lanka is hoping for a boost in its MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) tourism, and most of the tourists are Indians, a top official informed a media house, as Sri Lanka’s leisure industry has seen a faster recovery after last year’s political chaos which led to the big economic crisis.

MICE tourism is a niche market and has a considerable share in promoting tourism globally. MICE can also be referred to as Business Tourism or Business Events.

Krishantha Fernando, General Manager of Sri Lanka Convention Bureau said to a media house, that they started off this year with Tata, VNC group from South India and Tata Tiscon with 550 delegates and 3 charter flights and spent over half a million US dollars.

Predominantly Indian people come for MICE, mostly for conferences and Exhibitions India is a huge part. When it comes to Incentives, it’s a very tricky market. Europeans come for Incentives.

The European market is mostly for the Incentives because Sri Lanka is the direct connectivity, he added.

While communicating with the media house, Achini Dandunnage, Senior Manager of the Sri Lanka Convention Bureau highlighted that a lot of people do come from India and from other countries to have International conferences in Sri Lanka.

She further said that in 2018 and 2019 the MICE tourism was picking up but after the Easter Sunday attack, it went down to zero and of course it got down because of COVID-19 also.

They started to pick up in January, February and March 2022.

According to industry officials, the MICE industry accounts for nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s total tourist arrivals but has the potential to grow if the country puts appropriate policies in place.

For 2023, the state-run Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority amid 1.55 million tourist arrivals with 2.8-billion-dollar revenue.

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