DAVAO City plans to create meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) Board to further promote the city as a destination for events and gatherings.
For the past few years, the city has been positioning itself as a MICE destination. Several national and international conferences and gatherings have been held in the city afterwards which, accordingly, has resulted to the influx of visitors.
“Part ng priority ng CTOO and the city government is to later on come up with a Davao Mice Board. This is to ensure na mayroong tumututok sa Mice industry. Lalagyan ng funding so that the incentives will really be given, we can promote very well, and we can also do benchmarking,” Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) head Generose Tecson said during Habi at Kape media forum Wednesday, July 24.
She said Davao City will probably be first to have a Mice Board all over the country.
Tecson discussed the advantages of being a Mice destination which include bigger income as it ripple to all the other sectors in the city from hotels, conventions, souvenirs, restaurants, transportation, among others.
“If there is anything we saw for the past few years, our strength is really Mice because the President comes from Davao so everybody wants to have him as the keynote speaker so they hold it here,” she said.
“We should take advantage on that. With Mice, it is one of the priorities kasi mas malaki ang income natin,” she added.
Despite the plan, Tecson acknowledged the lack of hotel accommodation and convention facilities in the city, however said that by showing that the city is serious in being a MICE destination for Southeast Asia, investors will soon see the investment potential of the city.
The city currently has Mice programs and incentives which will soon be under the lookout of the Mice Board.
“We need to redo some of the things we are doing here in Davao to make it more attractive like the Mice incentives,” Tecson said.