BEIJING Eight Chinese cities have come together to form the China MICE Cities Alliance. The new partnership is aimed at joint promotion and development of the country as a major international business events destination.
The alliance members consist of Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Kunming, Shanghai, Sanya, Tianjin and Xian.
MICE representatives from the eight cities signed a “strategic cooperation framework agreement” last week at the China Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Exhibition in Beijing.
Some key points of the agreement include:
- Mutual support of each other to host high-level MICE events and large-scale international conferences,
- High-quality MICE resources in each city to be integrated and the marketing plans to be formulated.
- Official websites of the eight cities are to be linked to each other so that the MICE affairs, resources, products, projects and major events can be accessed through government information websites as well as official high-level MICE websites.
- A unified marketing promotion strategy when joining trade events overseas.
Sun Weijia, vice chairman of Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development, pointed out that the eight destinations that now form the China MICE Cities Alliance have their own unique development features and models.
“Therefore, cities can exchange and share experiences through this alliance, and more importantly, the alliance can forge a bridge among the MICE cities so that they can face up to the challenges collectively and work together to enhance the attraction and influence of China’s MICE destinations through mutually complementary and cross-regional cooperation,” Sun said.
Martin Sirk, chief executive of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), expressed optimism of the new alliance.
“One of the key differentiators in becoming a major international business events destination is teamwork,” he noted. “There is a time for collaboration and a time for competition.”
“Today, we open a genuinely new chapter in China’s future success. The emerging cities will learn from the more established cites and vice versa. This is a very important step for China on its way to becoming a superpower in the international meetings business.”
Gigi Onag
