MICE CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE

At the end of June, the Turkish capital Istanbul hosted the trade fair ECECIBT, oriented towards the meetings industry and focused on Central and Eastern Europe. Its objective was to bring together various industry players – buyers and service providers from this region: DMC agencies, PCO’s, hotels with conference facilities, agencies offering accompanying programmes, convention bureaus and others.

The trade fair took place for the first time this year. The hosted buyers came from various destinations, and what brought them together was their mutual interest in Central and Eastern Europe. Some of them had already been successfully cooperating with CEE companies, others – from such faraway destinations such as India and China – arrived with the intention to meet service providers as well as discover the many possibilities that the CEE region can offer in terms of meetings and events.

Our magazine, MICE CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, was established in 2007 as a specialist magazine that would gather information  for MICE experts in Central and Eastern Europe, present the CEE region to buyers from other destinations and publish information and destination offers from Central and Eastern Europe for international buyers.

Since the trade fair was founded on similar principles, we decided to become partners, cooperate and help to “get it going”. Our exposition attracted many visitors and guests and our magazines gained a plethora of new readers. Professionals, in particular, who know our publications very well, were taken by the new look of the magazines. Also appreciated were new sections such as profiles and news from other destinations – outside the CEE region – including news about the MICE or the meetings industry fields.

The cooperation between CEE countries within the context of MICE is promising and interesting. Even though the first year of this event wasn’t heaving with participants, it offered plenty of business opportunities. The most benefitial was the mixture of exhibitors from the ranks of PCO’s or hotels from CEE destinations such as Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Ukraine and Romania, who forged cooperative relations while engaging in the diverse meetings on offer, and at the same time doing business.