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The Seoul Tourism Organization's Seoul Convention Bureau (SCB) recently participated in the Europe Inventive Business Travel & Meeting (EIBTM) exhibition, held from December 1 to 3 at Barcelona's Fira Gran Via convention center, to promote Seoul and Korea as a prime destination for conventions and incentive travel.
EIBTM, a major convention and inventive tour exhibition held in the second half of each year in Barcelona, Spain, has been growing steadily in recent years, reflecting the rapidly growing global interest in the convention market. Participants include national and regional tourism authorities, as well as large hotel groups, airline companies, trade associations, and travel companies. Over 3,300 participants from 80 countries joined this year's event, with an additional 3,800 buyers from 71 countries.
This year's event was notable for the aggressive marketing campaigns carried out by Asian countries. Hong Kong, Malaysia and other key destinations in the region operated booths over twice the size of that of Seoul, promoting their cities and countries to global buyers. Seoul, however, used a multi-faceted approach for its own dynamic marketing strategy, conducting not only buyer consultations but a variety of unique events such as a traditional tea ceremony demonstration and venue floor advertising to attract the attention of event participants and global buyers. The tea ceremony, held twice each day to throngs of enthusiastic visitors, displayed the beauty of Korea's traditional heritage to exhibition attendees from around the world.
The event was the second time that the SCB operated its own individual booth in a European exhibition, following the IMEX event in Germany. However, Korea is still behind other competing countries in the Asian region. Hong Kong, China and Malaysia all had booths that were at least 1.5 to 4 times the size of Korea's, highlighting the need for a booth that suits the size and scale of Seoul's advantages as a global convention and inventive travel destination. The international MICE industry is like a "war zone" where countries continue to pour in significant amounts of capital in order to gain an edge in the fierce market, and Asian cities such as Hong Kong and Beijing present serious threats to Seoul's future as a global destination. Clearly, bold investments and aggressive marketing will be required in order to build Seoul into one of the world's top five MICE cities, and promote the charms and advantages of the city to the global market.
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