The Philippines’ Movement of Incentive Travel Executives (MITE) will be reactivated this year, after years of being dormant.
Reviving MITE is a timely move as the confidence is there and the sector is growing, Mike Albaña, vice president and general manager of SMX Convention Center told TTGmice on the sidelines of the signing with Clark Development Corp. (CDC) designating SMX Clark as the venue of MICECON 2024.
Albaña added that MITE will complement the Philippine Association of Convention/Exhibition Organizers and Suppliers (PACEOS), which is the voice of the Philippines’ convention and exhibition sector.
He plans to gather various industry stakeholders including hotels, event venues and tour operators handling incentive trips to discuss the MITE’s initiatives moving forward.
Tourism Congress of the Philippines’ (TCP) president, Bob Zozobrado, opined that forming an organisation of incentive travel executives “makes sense” to cover more business events ground as the sector is so varied.
Business events is one of the departments under the Philippines’ Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), prompting stakeholders including Zozobrado, to clamour for a body to handle business events exclusively.
In 1976, the Philippine Convention Bureau, an attached agency of the Department of Tourism (DOT), was in charge of business events until a reorganisation. It was renamed Philippine Convention and Visitors Corp. (PCVC) in 1987, before being reorganised again in 2009, and renamed TPB.
In its heyday, MITE actively worked side by side with the DOT and PCVC in holding educational programmes for the incentive travel, meetings and conference sector.
