Japan Tourism Agency, on January 29th, held the second meeting of the planning subcommittee on enhancing MICE global competitiveness at the international conference room in the Central Government Building No.2.
With the competition among nations becoming increasingly fierce, Japan is losing its share in Asia when attracting MICE business, which provides high values such as a huge economic impact and the creation of business opportunity.
Last November, Japan Tourism Agency formed a “committee on enhancing MICE global competitiveness” in order to step up drastically its effort toward attracting MICE business to the country, and held a planning subcommittee in December of the same year.
Counselor Makito Takami, who moderated the subcommittee, brought up Japan’s challenges in strengthening its MICE business by pointing out the 4Ps marketing paradigm – product, price, place and promotion. Mr. Takami made proposals on financial effort to overcome the country’s weak point of high cost of hosting exhibitions. He also mentioned the need for MICE-focused branding, and suggested participants to actively use the overseas media.
On the other hand, the participants pointed out that the other Asian countries – Japan’s competitors – receive subsidies from their governments. And, they suggested the Japanese government should take a good control of its administrative systems, such as building a mechanism which enable each Japanese city to cooperate with the government as the hub and a spoke, instead of simply competing against the competitors with the amount of subsidy that it offers.