This paper examines Zurich's strategy to increase its share of MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) business, specifically internal corporate meetings. The analysis identifies Zurich's competitive advantages as a financial hub—including livability, connectivity, and established MICE infrastructure—while acknowledging challenges such as high costs and limited hotel capacity. The paper recommends a media relations campaign targeting financial industry decision-makers globally, leveraging Zurich's existing positive reputation to position the city as an ideal venue for corporate internal meetings. The strategy emphasizes reaching geographically dispersed decision-makers through concentrated global financial media outlets rather than direct public relations efforts.
The acronym MICE refers to "meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions." The city of Zurich is interested in promoting itself more aggressively as a center for MICE events in Europe. This proposal outlines the external market characteristics of the Zurich area to narrow down a target market, develops a promotions strategy for Zurich, and presents conclusions from the research. Zurich wants to specifically focus on internal meetings, as the city believes it has significant advantages in attracting firms to hold important meetings and internal retreats.
Internal meetings are an important component of the MICE mix. For many companies, the value of internal meetings can be overlooked. Yet many situations require bringing together disparate internal groups to pursue a common goal. This might involve introducing new initiatives and technologies (Dragoon, 2004) or discussing aspects of strategy. In either case, the city needs to market itself to corporations, outlining the value of holding those meetings in Zurich.
Marketing a meeting can be challenging for firms. The company must first have a clear sense of purpose to attract and engage meeting participants. The meeting must include the right internal customers, and all parties should understand the meeting's purpose. Surveys have indicated that for meeting attendees, the most important aspects are the "promise of education and networking," with the destination being a lower priority (Wierzgac, 2002). This poses a challenge for a city like Zurich: the destination needs to become an attraction for the meeting organizers, if not the participants themselves.
As a location, Zurich possesses several unique features. Zurich routinely tops lists of world cities for livability and as places for expatriate workers to be assigned (Cowan, 2009). The city has been specifically cited for its public transport, safety, education, entertainment, and its relationships with small and medium-sized enterprises. As the banking capital of Switzerland and one of the major financial centers of Europe, Zurich has an attractive business climate. The financial and insurance sector has strong representation, accounting for 20 percent of the city's workforce. It is home to the Swiss Stock Exchange and is the world's largest gold trading center (USA Today, 2011). Each year, over 6,500 new companies are founded in Zurich, highlighting the city's strong relationship with small and medium-sized enterprises.
In terms of attracting MICE business, the city's reputation as a financial center and as an excellent destination are two main attractions. The cost of living is high in Zurich, so the target market is more likely to come from the international financial sector, with the secondary target market being domestic SMEs. The city has typically had a shortage of hotel rooms, but projects are underway to address that problem. Room rates in Zurich rank among the ten highest in the world, again pointing to the financial sector as the most likely target market for increased MICE activity (Thiessen, 2011).
Despite the competitive disadvantage in price and high occupancy rates, Zurich is a well-connected transport hub. It is the country's main international hub and home of Swiss International Airlines. As such, it is connected with major financial centers worldwide, including New York, Paris, Shanghai, Toronto, London, Dubai, Beijing, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, Mumbai, and Hong Kong. Financial industry firms can easily bring their key employees to Zurich for meetings without major transportation challenges. Zurich is also well-connected with the rest of Europe by rail.
The city has a well-established MICE infrastructure. Large nationwide companies in the MICE business as well as small boutique players can help with niche market events and events for small companies (Conventions.net, 2011). This infrastructure is one of the city's strengths—without it, Zurich would not truly be ready to host internal meetings for companies. Additionally, many corporations can host their own meetings, as most major banks and insurance companies have representation in Zurich. For the city, this is a strength because of the familiarity it creates with Zurich. Companies are more likely to hold internal meetings in cities where they have people on the ground and in cities that are important to their global business. Zurich fits that description for most firms in the financial industry.
The City of Zurich must decide how to promote internal meetings in Zurich to its financial industry target market. The difference between the two approaches is that public relations focuses on the general public, while media relations refers to a strategy for dealing with the media (del Monte, 2010). In this case, the decision makers for the target market are remote, often in other countries. Only with the secondary target market of domestic SMEs is there much use for a public relations campaign. The message needs to reach decision makers in the financial industry regardless of their location. This means that the media must be utilized to deliver the message to the target audience.
The city already earns positive media coverage for its livability and the strength of its financial industry. The key for the city is to piggyback the message about MICE onto this positive press. Currently, none of the messages emerging from Zurich to the world at large focus on the MICE industry. If anything, the city's high prices and high occupancy rates are the only aspects people know about this sector in Zurich, and those are negative factors.
The media relations strategy needs to focus on two key elements: the MICE message and the media's global reach. The MICE message is simple: Zurich is already renowned as a financial industry center and an excellent city in which to do business. It has a stellar reputation as a city in general. The message needs to emerge that Zurich is a great place for companies to hold their meetings. The media needs to hear this message from Zurich, and the city must also support the media in their coverage. When stories emerge about the city, there needs to be a specific media contact so that the city can always communicate its message to the media. Often, there is no direct contact with Zurich representatives when the city is being written about. The media relations campaign should aim to change that. Additionally, there should be specific press releases highlighting new hotels, major conferences, and other links between the reputation of Zurich and the suitability of the city for MICE events.
The advantages of engaging in a media relations campaign are significant. The city has a better chance to control the messages about itself and to ensure that its marketing message finds its way into Zurich-related media coverage. While the audience is geographically dispersed, the media outlets serving this target market are relatively concentrated. Therefore, a media relations campaign is an efficient means of reaching the key people who organize MICE events for financial industry companies. Another advantage is that Zurich should already have a PR or media department. The incremental costs associated with adding one or two staff members to specifically manage a media relations campaign should be relatively small.
However, there are disadvantages to this approach. One key disadvantage is that the media seldom writes about MICE events, so managing the message may be challenging. With other forms of marketing, Zurich would have more direct control over the message, even if it would reach fewer people. By using a media relations campaign, the message reaches more people but does so through media intermediaries, raising the risk that the message will be diluted. Another disadvantage is that the link between the marketing message and the purchase decision is often distant. The message relies on planting a seed that may evolve into a purchase decision rather than other methods that might rely more on direct selling. The direct selling role, however, is more appropriate for individual hotels and conference centers; the role of the Convention and Visitor's Bureau is more loosely promotional.
Another disadvantage of a media relations program is that the CVB does not directly target the decision-makers. Part of the issue is that they are hard to reach. Not only may they be in other countries, but there could be multiple decision-makers within any given firm. Without knowing who the decision makers are, it may be difficult to understand the key decision drivers fully. There is no good way to evaluate the success of a media relations program because the program is so far removed from the actual purchase decision. Any marketing program should be designed so that it can be evaluated. With a media relations program, it will be almost impossible to quantify the impact. This is complicated by the long time lag in planning such events—some can be planned over a year in advance.
The second critical element for the campaign is global reach. The financial industry is global in nature. The media channels used in the media relations campaign should reflect that. Global news and financial media are already saturated with advertisements for investment destinations—on CNN International, BBC World, Deutsche Welt, and similar outlets. These outlets reach the global investment community. There are also print publications and websites that target this community. These outlets should be the target of the campaign. From a support perspective, an important element should be ensuring that these agencies have representation in Zurich. Having people in the media on the ground in Zurich will highlight the city's relevance and provide more opportunity for Zurich to tell its story to the financial industry. If reporting on Zurich-based events is done from Paris, London, or Frankfurt, then Zurich will not have a chance to influence the messages about the city.
"Campaign advantages, risks, and measurement challenges"
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