The ITB Berlin is presumably the biggest travel trade show in the world and takes place once a year in Berlin. Being commonly known for the leisure industry there is a MICE niche emerging at the ITB.

Here some examples of how it’s developing:

The ITB MICE Day has been running since 2009 and is slowly picking up due to international press coverage and stronger communication and branding. This year the programme was running over 3 days and included a MICE Hub for exhibitors, a MICE forum for education and a MICE Night for networking. The programme was organised by the MICE ITB Berlin partner the “Verband der Veranstaltungsorganisatoren e.V. (VDVO)”. This year over 600 international participants attended the forum. The success of the sessions was visible in the crowds joining and people standing in the back or sitting on the floor due to limited seat capacity.  The ITB MICE Night was a full success with over 120 guests.

SITE Germany Chapter held its pre ITB event for members and non-members at the museum of communication; it was an informal event where MICE professionals and others could meet to network.

It is exciting to see the growth of the ITB Berlin MICE section as it is demonstrating a shift in the travel and trade show industry and showing us that leisure and business travel cannot be looked at separately anymore.  Might we be able to speak of a new trend where leisure and MICE merge into one trade show?

We are curious to see what the future of MICE and leisure travel holds.