Definition
The travel trade's term for business group travel: meetings, incentive trips, conferences and exhibitions. Think of a 60-person dealer meet in Bangkok, a sales-team reward trip to Vietnam or a delegation to a trade fair in Dubai.
The four parts
- Meetings: board meetings, offsites and training at a hotel or resort.
- Incentives: reward trips for top sales staff, dealers or distributors, common in pharma, auto, FMCG, insurance and real estate.
- Conferences: annual sales conferences or association events with plenary sessions.
- Exhibitions: delegations to trade fairs in cities such as Dubai, Frankfurt or Shanghai.
Where Indian companies go
Short-haul, visa-friendly destinations dominate: Dubai, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bali, with Baku, Turkey and Europe for bigger budgets. In India, Goa, Jaipur, Udaipur and Kerala are the usual picks for offsites.
What makes MICE different
- Lead time: 3–6 months for 100 or more international delegates, because group fares and hotel blocks go first.
- Visas at scale: e-visas for Vietnam or Dubai are manageable, but Schengen trips need 8–12 weeks and tracking for every delegate.
- Rooms and food: vegetarian and Jain counts, single rooms for senior staff, dietary needs at every meal.
- Event production: stage, AV, branding, gala dinners and awards nights, usually delivered by a DMC.
- Invoicing: a GST invoice in the company's name, and TCS at 2% on overseas packages from 1 April 2026, which the company can claim against its own tax.
An example
A Pune auto-parts maker rewards 120 dealers with four nights in Da Nang, Vietnam. Planning starts in January for a July trip: group fares from three Indian cities, Vietnam e-visas, a beach resort, an awards-night gala dinner and a Hindi-speaking escort on each coach.
See our corporate travel and MICE service for how we plan these.