[Edaily Reporter LEE SEON-WOO ] The “Meetings” sector—the last segment of the MICE industry that had not yet been designated as a nationally approved statistic—has passed the review process for national statistical approval. With this, a comprehensive national statistical system covering all sectors of the MICE industry—including exhibitions and trade shows, international conferences, and incentive travel—has now been established.
The National Data Agency recently designated the “Meeting Industry Status Survey,” conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization, as a nationally approved statistic. Starting with exhibitions and fairs in 2016, followed by international conferences in 2024 and incentive travel last year, all sectors of the MICE industry have now received national statistical approval for the first time in 10 years. “Nationally Approved Statistics” are official statistics approved by the National Data Agency in accordance with the Statistics Act and are used for government policy formulation and evaluation, as well as for analyzing industrial and economic conditions.

“Meetings” refer to conferences hosted by the government, public institutions, associations, academic societies, or corporations, and are generally smaller in scale than international conferences (conventions). They also include “corporate meetings” hosted by companies for business purposes.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization’s “2024 MICE Industry Statistics Survey and Research,” a total of 168,876 meetings were held in Korea, accounting for 94.2% of all MICE events (179,339). The total number of participants was 15,757,947, averaging 93 people per event.
These nationally approved statistics retained the existing criteria: events held at external meeting facilities with 10 or more domestic or international participants lasting four hours or longer. The facilities surveyed were categorized into 1,052 venues across 13 sectors, including not only specialized meeting facilities such as convention centers and hotels but also universities, training centers, and unique venues (unconventional meeting spaces).
The survey items consisted of 12 categories necessary for formulating industry promotion policies, including the number of events held, event budgets, types of organizing bodies, and the revenue and employment status of related businesses. However, conferences that meet all the criteria for international conferences under the special classification of the MICE industry—namely, involving three or more participating countries, 50 or more foreign participants, 100 or more total participants, and a duration of two or more days—were excluded from the survey.
With the approval of national statistics for the meetings industry, it is now possible to assess the scale and status of the MICE industry across all sectors based on official national statistics and to utilize these results for policy formulation and evaluation. In particular, as the “meetings” sector—which has the highest number of events among the four industry sectors—has been included in national statistics, this is expected to provide further momentum for expanding related policies and securing budgets.
Do Hyun-ji, Director of the Tourism Data Division at the Korea Tourism Organization, stated, “The results of the first survey of nationally approved statistics for the meetings industry are scheduled to be released in December of next year via the National Statistics Portal and the Korea Tourism Data Lab,” adding, “We are also pursuing the designation of integrated, nationally approved statistics for the MICE sector.”