Mice industry as a driver of economic development

Keywords: MICE industry, halal tourism, Uzbekistan, halal certification, country 
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Introduction 
The term of MICE industry signifies a sector of tourism which consist of business 
events and activities such as Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions or MICE 
in brief. Some people prefer to use the term “events industry” or “meetings industry” 
instead of MICE tourism. Nevertheless, irrespective of what you call it, this industry is an 
extremely demanding and particular sphere of the tourism. Meetings define any number 
of people coming together in a place for particular activities. They can be board meetings, 
management meetings, and shareholder’s meetings, training seminars, meetings with 
partners, suppliers and clients, product launches, strategic planning, retreats. It is 
noteworthy that almost all types of meetings are hold with food and beverage.

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Nevertheless, even though the conference travel is similar to meeting in that it is a 
gathering of people coming together in a place, on the other hand conference usually have 
specific objectives and exchanges of information. That is why conference includes 
organizing itineraries, meetings, and events for people from the same profession or field. 
Another difference of conferences from meetings is that former are conducted once in a 
year and mostly last for several days which involves a social program and organized by 
association, while the latter take place more frequently. Incentive travel is one of the 
important aspect of MICE industry. It is effectively a travel bonus used to incentivize and 
motivate any companies’ employees or partners. It is almost always tied to company goals 
or highest performance. Mostly incentive trips also come with hotel stays, tour packages 
and planned activities such as dinner, food and beverage, parties and activities which not 
related to business. Exhibition travel is defined as an event which is organized as an 
organization’s promotion that shows new products or services to the public. Exhibitions 
are mostly included in other conferences and meetings, indicating that there is often 
overlay between agents in these businesses.
Recent developments in Halal tourism is directly connected with promotion of 
Halal MICE industry due to close interconnectedness between them. As most of MICE 
travelers from Muslim countries are committed to their religion, and there should be 
suitable conditions in the destination country for Muslim travelers to follow commands of 
their faith. Due to expansion of demand for halal services by Muslim travelers Halal 
tourism market is growing rapidly throughout the world, Uzbekistan is not an exception. 
Being a host country for large number of Muslim travelers and having majority of its 
population belong to the same faith, the opportunities of Halal tourism are unique for the 
country. Furthermore, Uzbekistan is bordered with all Muslim majority neighbor 
countries and has a rich Islamic heritage and many historical sights which attract Muslims 
all around. Since MICE tourism is also developing in Uzbekistan and significant portion 
of MICE visitors also belong to the Muslims faith, country is uniquely positioned to 
develop and prosper as new halal MICE destinations. On the other hand, there are many 
challenges which should be overcome such as preparation of halal tourism infrastructure 
and making event planners ready for every act hosts of halal tourism. Halal tourism 
industry in Uzbekistan, and halal MICE industry in particular has some hurdles to 
overcome so demand for such services expands among Muslim travelers to the country.