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Cooperation, innovations and knowledge in MICE tourist product perception

Conference Paper · January 2014

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.3031.1685

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 Cooperation, Innovations and Knowledge in MICE Tourist Product Perception

MILENA RATAJCZAK-MROZEK, POZNAN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS (milena.ratajczak@ue.poznan.pl)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to create a method for researching the perception of cooperation, knowledge and innovation in events organised within the
MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) industry. Paper adapts conceptual approach based on pertinent literature review and
interviews with MICE representatives. The analysis refers to research in the field of products and product value perceptions, however, in this case the
value is determined by knowledge and innovation. The main research result is a proposed method for assessing the perception of cooperation,
knowledge and innovation in MICE products taking into account the perspective of innovation beneficiaries.

Keywords: MICE industry, innovations, product perception

Acknowledgements:
This paper was written under a project granted by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) UMO-2011/03/B/HS4/03584
1. Introduction

The meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry forms a part of
business tourism. The growing importance of the MICE industry (also for the emerging
markets) is a result of, among others relatively high per capita day visitor expenditure It is said
to promote investment, trade, communications, and technology development, it creates and
spreads world-wide knowledge, ensures the viability of community leisure facilities, helps to
funding infrastructure developments and leads to increased inward investment (Swarbrooke &
Horner, 2001; World Tourism Organization, 2014). Moreover, it plays an important role in
supporting and promoting other businesses (World Tourism Organization, 2014). Business
travel is a major source of revenue for airlines, taxis and car hire service providers as well as
hotels. MICE also have a significant positive economic impact on individual smaller specialist
suppliers such as florists, audio-visual companies and photographers (Swarbrooke & Horner,
2001).
Knowledge and innovative solutions are required in order to offer products from the MICE
industry, which will provide both professional and memorable experiences which will turn into
many benefits for both participants, organisers and destination. The role of knowledge and
innovation in ensuring product development is a widely accepted fact. However, cooperation
between various entities is required in order to deliver these innovative solutions, which is
particularly the case for tourist products which constitute a „combination of heterogeneous
elements separated in time and place, assembling interrelated services and products” (Aldebert,
Dang & Longhi, 2011). There is, however, the question if a business tourist is able to notice
and appreciate intensive knowledge and innovation processes standing behind the MICE
product. This question, to a large extent, refers to research in the field of products and product
value perceptions, however, in this case the value is indeed determined by knowledge and
innovation.
The aim of the article is to create a method for assessing the perception of cooperation,
knowledge and innovation in events organised within the MICE industry
The main reason for developing a research concept is the insufficient amount of research in
to knowledge diffusion within business tourism networks taking in to account the issue of
management, marketing and product perception in particular. The research method will serve
to carry out quantitative analysis amongst the beneficiaries of tourism innovation, namely
participants of international conferences & professional exhibitions which in turn should lead
to increases in the quality of marketing management from the perspective of MICE organisers.
Paper adapts conceptual approach based on pertinent literature review, expanded in order to
take in to consideration information obtained during interviews with MICE representatives.
This paper is organised as follows. The first section contains definition and MICE product
specifications, including the main components of these products. The second section deals with
the issue of knowledge and innovation, including cooperation within the process of offering
these products. Next, there is a research concept proposal for examining innovation and
knowledge in MICE tourist products from the perspective of business tourists. The article ends
with conclusions and a list of limitations.

2. A MICE Tourist Product and its Components

The acronym “MICE” industry refers to the meetings, incentives, conventions (conferences,
congresses) and exhibitions market (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2001), where a meeting is defined
as being “an organised event which brings people together to discuss a topic of shared interest”
(Davidson 1994) and the incentive is “a management tool that uses exceptional travel
experience to motivate” (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2001). The MICE industry is also identified
with business travel and business tourism, comprising trips and visits made by employees
during the course of their work.
Business tourism is very diversified which makes it difficult to generalise about the nature
and main characteristics of its products. The most important characteristic that differentiates
business travel from leisure travel is that it is driven by derived demand. “Most tourist services,
goods and facilities are purchased by business tourists because they are inputs of creating final
products – concluding agreements, selling products, exchanging info at a conference, etc. The
role that the public sector plays in creating the attractiveness of the sector is lesser than in leisure
tourism because of the fact that it is part of a general tourist product in a city” (Leszczyński &
Zmyślony, 2013).
A tourism product, including MICE product is “a combination of heterogeneous elements
separated in time and space, assembling interrelated services and products (transport,
accommodation, services, leisure services, etc.)” (Aldebert, Dang & Longhi, 2011). “For
tourists (also business tourists), the product is a complete experience that fulfills multiple
tourism needs, and provides corresponding benefits” (Xu, 2010). In turn, this means that the
creation of a high quality MICE product requires the cooperation of diversified entities which
include (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2001; Mackellar, 2006; Leszczyński & Zmyślony, 2013):
meeting planners, venue-finding agencies, accommodation owners, PR agencies and event
management companies, associations organising conferences, catering companies, suppliers of
exhibition services (furniture, flowers, stand constructors), interpreters, telecommunications
facilities, conference/exhibition centres owners just to name a few of them. Some of these
entities identify themselves with the local tourism industry only to a small extent. These
cooperating entities create a kind of MICE network.
The complexity and heterogeneity of tourist products points to the need to identify the
components of a MICE product. An analysis of the components of a tourism product can be
presented from the perspective of the value chain or the levels/elements of the product. In line
with the value chain definition, a tourism product consists of “its production, distribution and
marketing being configured along a value chain involving many activities which are vertically,
horizontally and diagonally related and integrated in varying degrees” (Weiermair, 2005). And
the level or element of a product may refer to Smith’s research (1994), who broke down the
tourism product into five elements: physical plant, service, hospitality, freedom of choice, and
involvement, where physical plant is put in the core, with the other elements in a series of
surrounding elements. Those outer elements facilitate the processes of tourism production.
Table 1 contains a literature review concerning the components of tourist products (and
especially MICE products), which will form the basis for the conceptual research method later
in the article.

Table 1. Tourist Product Components (a literature review)

Kategoria Source Factors/elements
The tourism value (Weiermair, • Provision of travel information, reservation and booking
chain 2005) • Transport to the destination
• Provision of information at the destination
• Accommodation and food
• Transport at the destination
• Provision of manmade tourism attractions
• Return transport to sending region
• After sales services
The tourism product (Smith, 1994) • Physical plant
elements • Service
 • Hospitality,
• Freedom of choice
• Involvement
The Most Important (Lee & Park, • Location of accommodation
Service Factors 2002). • Program handling ability
• Responsiveness to participants’ needs
• Language fluency of convention staff
• Service attitude of convention staff
• Technology
• Comfort & convenience of transportation service
• Size of meeting, exhibition, banquet room
• Accommodation facilities
• Speed of follow up by convention staff
Key Destination (Getz, 2003) • Accessibility; central location; air and road connections
Attributes Desired by • Supply of event venues
Associations and • Accommodations
Meeting Planners • Amenities (nightlife, food and beverage services, other
attractions)
• Image as a desirable place to visit
• Reputation for hosting successful events, for tourism in
general
• Safety and comfort of visitors
• Support services to events
• Number and type of local organisations and business
capable of hosting
• Cost (or perceived value for money)
Quality Attributes of (Robinson & • Location and Image
the Meetings Product Callan, 2002) • Price/Value
• Competence
• Access
• Tangibles–Bedroom
• Tangibles–Other
• Leisure Facilities
• The Service Provider
• Meeting Room Tangibles
• Additional Services

3. The Importance of Knowledge and Innovation in the MICE Industry

There has been increasing interest in innovation within the tourism industry. Innovation is
“the act of introducing something new” (Mackellar, 2006). In tourism product, process,
managerial, marketing and institutional innovations are important (Hjalager, 2010). As far as
innovations perceived by customers are concerned here product or service innovations that
“refer to changes directly observed by the customer and regarded as new; either in the sense of
never seen before, or new to the particular enterprise or destination” are important (Hjaalager,
2010). In this way the perception of these innovations may be assessed by indicating the level
of novelty or surprise.
For the process of creating innovation, which is an outcome of network interaction (Ruef,
2002; Mackellar, 2006), knowledge that is said to be a critical factor for both the occurrence
and nature of innovations is particularly important (Hjalager, 2010). Here the importance of
knowledge resulting from cooperation, knowledge sharing and team culture, which are “an
important influence on service innovation performance” are underlined (Hua, Horng & Sun,
2009). Innovation and the transfer of knowledge are linked to interactions between entities from
different industries (including the traditional actors of tourism) (Aldebert, Dang & Longhi,
2011), which in turn requires synergy effects.
Despite the increasing interest in innovations “there is an incomplete understanding of how
innovation processes take place in tourism enterprises and organisations” and of “their impacts
and wider implications for destinations” and entities involved in business tourism (Hjalager,
2010).

4. Results and Implications: A Proposed Method for Assessing the Perception of

Cooperation, Knowledge and Innovation in MICE Products – the Perspective of
Innovation Beneficiaries

There is a lack of research in to knowledge diffusion in business tourism networks which

would also take in to consideration the issues of management and marketing (particularly
product perception). For this reason, a research tool is proposed here in order to evaluate the
perception of cooperation, knowledge processes and innovation which lie at the heart of the
tourism industry and in particular products from the MICE industry, from the perspective of the
final beneficiaries. This in turn should help planners and MICE organisers to improve their
performance, product quality and image as well as the quality of marketing management.
The proposed research method will serve to carryout quantitative research among the
beneficiaries of innovations in tourism, namely the participants of international conferences and
professional exhibitions. The quantitative research stage was preceded by qualitative research
with representatives from the MICE network. Research in to the MICE network identified the
most intensive areas of cooperation, transfers of important knowledge and innovative solutions.
It is important therefore to verify if these efforts are significant from the perspective of the
beneficiaries of innovation and to identify if they are conscious of these innovations and
appreciate any value added. The question is how to analyse the perception of the processes
which are “behind the scenes”, and not necessarily visible to consumers.
Quantitative research will be carried out using questionnaires which will be distributed to
participants of a selected international conference. The survey questionnaire is developed using
a multi-dimensional procedure, based upon the literature review conducted in this article and
information obtained during previous quantitative analyses.
It should be noted that because the analysis will take in to consideration knowledge and
innovation, it is not possible to utilise adopted methods such as SEVQUAL (perceived quality)
or PERVAL (perceived value) (Sánchez et al., 2006). In the proposed method we refer to a
product perception analysis, subjective “special “impression” or “feeling” related to the
convention overall” (Lee & Park, 2002) and especially to perceived value perception (Sánchez
et al., 2006). In this case, however, “value” is the knowledge and innovation standing behind
the offered products.
The matrix of questions serving to assess the perception of cooperation, knowledge and
innovation in a MICE tourist product is presented in table 2. In the case of each question,
participants will be requested to respond using a 7-point Likert scale. In selecting a value of 1,
the participant is replying “I completely disagree” whereas a response of 7 means “I completely
agree”. (The question: “Below are a list of areas linked to your participation in this conference.
Please asses each area using the following scale”). Questions cover knowledge, cooperation
and its effects in terms of synergies, innovation (novelty and surprise) as well as satisfaction.
Table 2. An Assessment of Cooperation, Knowledge and Innovation within a MICE
Tourist Product.
Customer
Knowledge and Innovation’ perception
satisfaction
In order to prepare this area… The offering in this area
was…
a lot of knowledge cooperation really new surprising I am
knowledge exchange and market and differed and meant satisfied
Areas
was required between synergies to those I that I spent with the
more than among firms have my time offering in
one firm was from various previously differently this area
required industries experienced than I
was required assumed I
would.
Theme of the
conference/sessions
Program/sessions
handling ability
Keynote speakers
…

All of the subsequent rows in the first column will cover: The theme of the
conference/sessions; Program/sessions handling ability; Keynote speakers; Site visits (in
companies); The diversity of conference participants; Provision of information before the
conference (including registration service); Provision of information during the conference;
Staff support; Conference venue; Materials and extras, Visual identification system; Catering;
Technology comfort and equipment; Accommodation (Hotels); Welcome and registration;
Reception event and dinners; Lifestyle attractions and social activities; Transport to the
destination; Transport infrastructure within the destination.
Additionally to the questions posed in the matrix, there will be those covering the following
areas:
− satisfaction from participating in the conference (Net Promoter Score method: “How
likely is it that you would recommend taking part in ABSL to a friend or colleague?”),
− an assessment of the knowledge obtained thanks to the conference (“How do you assess
the usefulness of the information obtained during the conference in terms of your
personal competencies and skills?”),
− the characteristics of the participants (especially factors linked to experience of
participating in the same/similar conferences).

5. Conclusions and limitations

The main research result is a proposed method for assessing the perceptions of business
tourists in terms of cooperation, knowledge and innovation standing behind a MICE tourist
product. This is difficult in the sense that different tourists may see different elements creating
a MICE product at a specific event. For this reason, individual elements will be subject to
assessment and will create a general product perception and value. Moreover, the processes
being subjected to analysis in this case (i.e. knowledge, innovation and cooperation) are not
always visible for participants of MICE events. This begs the question if they are able to
perceive these processes and if so, do they appreciate their value. Due to the difficulty in
perceiving innovation by the final beneficiaries, the analysis focuses on product and service
 innovations. As a result of the aforementioned limitations, the model will be verified through a
pilot survey and will be reviewed by representatives from various firms.
The proposed method is not free of various limitations, which in turn identify areas for
further verification. Above all, these relate to perceptions, which constitute a subjective
construct influenced by past experience, prejudices, mood and past experience. There is
therefore the question of how to extract objective implications regarding marketing
management based upon subjective assessments.

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