MICE Industry Survival: A Systematic Literature Review

This research explores the importance of Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) industry on the economy and how it has survived the past ten years by looking at its opportunities and challenges. The systematic review looked at scientific research published in reputable, indexed journals between 2011 and 2021 to find out what business opportunities and challenges the MICE industry faces. The data for the systematic literature review was collected from ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Emerald databases. The PRISMA systematic review involve four basic steps: formulating research questions, identifying keywords, selecting articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, and synthesizing results. Out of 1150 papers gathered, only 17 papers specifically address the opportunity and challenges of MICE realm. The content analysis showed some real-world evidence of significant challenges and opportunities in the MICE industry. The findings pave the way for future research in MICE events to focus on empirical studies of industry competitive advantages, impending challenges and sustainability.


Introduction
The meetings, incentives, conventions, and expositions (MICE) industry consists of organizers and suppliers who organize and supply meetings, conferences, expositions, and other events for professional, business, cultural, or academic objectives. The future success of businesses, communities, destinations, and other sectors supported by the MICE sector depends upon the activities of the industry. MICE event organizers' creative services include show displays, direction signs, banners, kiosks, exhibition space, event photography, and audiovisual/technical production. Included are event marketing and sponsorship management, group flight fulfilment, on-site event logistics, staffing, vendor management, virtual meetings, and risk management. It is essential to the broader economy and delivers the most significant revenue for the travel industry (Allied Market Research, 2019;Anas et al., 2020).
The MICE industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. Global MICE revenue in 2017 was $805.0 billion and is projected to reach $1,334.4 billion by 2028, rising at a CAGR of 21.3% between 2021 and 2028 (Allied Market Research, 2022). In response to an increase in The expansion of MICE helps economic diversification, encourages the responsible utilization of cultural and natural-recreational resources, and enables the tourism industry to develop sustainably (Astakhova, 2019;Manzoor et al., 2019). In addition, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) noted that the tourism industry is beginning to recover in certain regions following months of severe disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. The bulk of travel restrictions remained in force throughout the world, with business travel being one of the most affected industries (World Tourism Organization, 2020). Those examples demonstrate the significance of researching the industry's MICE opportunities and constraints.
This study explores the MICE sector's survivability over ten years (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021), concentrating on the opportunities and challenges encountered in the business, utilizing scholarly publications published in the three most prominent journal databases: Emerald Insights, Scopus, and ScienceDirect. The outcomes of this study provide a significant contribution towards the survival of the MICE industry in sustaining economic growth and facing impending challenges while looking for opportunities to strategize their businesses.

Methodology The Review Protocol
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is a published guideline for systematic literature reviews. PRISMA is widely utilised in systematic review research and can identify the inclusion and exclusion criteria for a study. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Statement adapted from Page et al (2021) were used as the review protocol to guide the reporting of this systematic review. It describes the process of choosing the best articles for the study (Shaffril et al., 2021;Sambunjak et al., 2017).

Research Question Formulation
The research question for the study formulated using the PICo approach. PICo is a tool that assists researchers in developing a relevant research question for a systematic literature review. PICo has three major concepts: population or problem, interest, and context. The researchers outlined three significant aspects in the review based on the concepts: 1. Population = MICE industry 2.
Interest = opportunities and challenges 3.
Context = a ten-year trend survival These three significant aspects then guided the formulation of the leading research question: What are the opportunities and challenges faced by the MICE industry over a ten-year (2011-2021) trend survival?
The researchers divide the main research question into two sub-questions to ease the analysis. The first query concerns the contribution of the MICE sector to economic growth, and the second query concerns the challenges and opportunities the MICE sector has encountered during the past 10 years.

Resources
The study examines the content of empirical-based articles published in chosen journal databases over the last ten years (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021) to collect data on the MICE industry's opportunities and challenges. The data came from previously published studies found in three journal databases: Emerald, Scopus, and ScienceDirect. These three databases were selected based on their standing as central databases and were highly recommended by scholars (Shaffril et al., 2020;Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). The systematic search for relevant articles for this review divided into three stages: identification, screening, and eligibility. The following sections detail the stages of the systematic review, as shown in Figure 1.

Searching Strategies for the Systematic Review
The systematic search for relevant articles for this review divided into three stages: identification, screening, and eligibility.

Identification Phase
The keywords were identified during the first stage and then enriched by searching for similar or related terms in dictionaries, thesaurus, and previous research. The keywords were then linked together using field codes, Boolean operators (AND, OR), wildcards, and truncation to make the search easier and narrow the results to relevant articles (Shaffril et al., 2020;Siddaway et al., 2018). Following the identification of all keywords, search strings were created in February 2022 (see Table 1) and used in Science Direct, Scopus, and Emerald. The identification phase identifies the parameters for the selected database and the keywords for the search string. Figure 1 shows that the search string led to 45,097 articles in Science Direct (4,427), Scopus (1,677), and Emerald Insight (39,000). Science Direct ("opportunit*") AND ("Challeng*" OR "Threat*" OR "Demand*") AND (*MICE Industry*" OR "Business event" OR "Meeting tourism" OR "Conference event" OR "Exhibition") Scopus TITLE-ABS-KEY ("opportunit*") AND ("Challeng*" OR "Threat*" OR "Demand*") AND (*MICE Industry*" OR "Business event" OR "Meeting tourism" OR "Conference event" OR "Exhibition") Emerald Insight (("opportunit*") AND ("Challeng*" OR "Threat*" OR "Demand*") AND (*MICE Industry*" OR "Business event" OR "Meeting tourism" OR "Conference event" OR "Exhibition"))

Screening Phase
The screening process is required to avoid doubts and biases in the article; to determine whether an article should be included or excluded based on the reviewers' judgments; and to assess the relevance of the articles or studies to the research objectives. The following inclusion criteria were established at this stage: 1.
The articles are written in English.
The scope of the research is within Business Events and MICE context. 45,097 articles were screened automatically using the sorting function in three databases to select the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria ( Table 2). The first criterion was the type of article; due to their status as primary sources and provision of empirical data, the researchers agreed to focus exclusively on research articles (Shaffril et al., 2020;Siddaway et al., 2018). In addition, only English-language publications were evaluated for this study. Therefore, non-English publications were excluded. In addition, the article's acceptable inclusion period was ten years (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021). Finally, yet importantly, 43,930 articles were omitted from the review. Thus, only 1,167 articles were analysed in the next stage, which is the eligibility phase to select the most related papers for the final review.

Eligibility Phase
The exclusion criteria were established (see Table 2) at this phase to select the most appropriate articles for the final usable review and analysis. The exclusion criteria include the following elements: 1.
Chapter in a book, conference proceeding, systematic review, review papers, metasynthesis, meta-analysis, conference books, and book series.

2.
Not written in English.
Article did not provide a clear methodology and the result did not based on empirical data.

Language
Written in English Written in other languages

Article Methodology
Article provide a clear methodology and their finding is based on empirical data.
The article did not provide a clear methodology and the result did not base on empirical data.
In the third stage, eligibility, the researchers manually reviewed the titles and abstracts of the remaining 1,167 articles to determine if they were suitable for inclusion in the current study in order to achieve the study's objectives. As a result, 1,150 articles were omitted because they did not meet the established parameters for the chosen criteria and were consequently rejected. Subsequently, only 17 papers discussing the challenges and opportunities of the MICE industry were utilised for the systematic review study. These articles are eligible for the subsequent process of quality evaluation.

Quality Evaluation
A quality evaluation was performed to assess the quality of the articles' content. Three authors independently ranked the quality of the thirty articles as high, medium, or low based on the predetermined criteria. The criteria were established in accordance with the review's research questions. During the process of evaluating the paper's quality, authors practised mutual agreement in order to minimise bias. The 17 articles were deemed appropriate based on the evaluation work, which found all articles highly met the research question for this study.

Data Analysis and Findings
This analysis and findings are carried out following the study's goal, which is to identify the challenges and opportunities in the MICE industry. This procedure is carried out following the completion of the final material selection. Different individuals performed a screening process to determine the data that could be received and data that could not be accepted or overlapped. Acceptable data is derived from multiple findings of repeated study articles that yield comparable results, but unsatisfactory data is derived from non-repeated data. It is critical to repeat findings from earlier research to demonstrate the correctness of the information outcomes, which are then collected as study results. There were 17 materials relevant to the topic MICE Industry: The Challenges and Opportunities based on the final findings utilizing six identified keywords. All of the databases used in this investigation are listed by keyword in Table 1. The data analysis phase starts with thematic analysis and is followed by data extraction and categorization.

Data Extraction and Thematic Analysis
The data extraction was conducted according to the research question. Any data that could be used to answer the research question was extracted and tabulated from the reviewed literature. The extracted data were then subjected to thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify themes based on patterns, similarities, and relationships. The first step of thematic analysis involved the generation of themes. In this step, the researchers attempted to identify patterns that appeared to connect the data abstracted from all seventeen reviewed research articles. Similar or related data was grouped, and six themes were ultimately developed. To ensure the usefulness and accuracy of the data, the researchers then reviewed the data's accuracy and discussed any inconsistencies in the resulting themes. The researchers then identified six themes: challenges, opportunities, threats, demand, business events, and conferences. Table 3 presented the outcome of the data extraction and categorization following the thematic analysis approach.  Table 3 displays the results of data extraction and categorization, revealing that Emerald Insight has the greatest number of published articles (n = 8, or 47%) that cover the four major themes, excluding Business Events and Conferences. In addition, the MICE Challenges theme has the highest percentage (29.4%) among all other themes. In the subsequent sections, the description of each theme contains the content analysis findings.

Content Analysis Results
This section presents the content analysis findings of a systematic analysis of 17 articles from three (3) databases, namely Emerald Insight, Scopus, and ScienceDirect (Table 4). The findings are categorised into six themes: opportunities, challenges, threats, demands, business events, and conferences. The content analysis findings for each theme are subsequently presented in the subsections.

Opportunity in MICE Industry
Opportunities are a combination of various circumstances at a given time that, if taken advantage of, offer a positive outcome. The MICE industry uses conventions and exhibitions to generate economic growth and a steady flow of company traffic, logistics, people flow, capital flow, knowledge flow, and business opportunities within a region (Zheng, 2018). Opportunities were mentioned in 17.6% of the 17 articles reviewed. Most of these came from Emerald Insight (2) and Science Direct (1) databases.  (2015) The qualitative results revealed that MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions) tourism is frequently regarded as a key component of the travel industry, with locations focusing on such events to stimulate their growth.
According to Enger et al (2015), the main objectives of the transformation towards digitization, the implementation of new norms, consumer demand for event organisation, revenue returns and benefits to MICE industry players, venue centralization, and demographic factors have been identified as six key factors with predictable outcomes for the post-COVID-19 industry. These six factors are income polarisation, digitalization, climate change, consumer demand, and population growth. Therefore, in order to maintain a competitive marketplace and a sustainable future, travel companies/event organisers must listen to and learn from foreign organisers who use big data (Jones & Li, 2015) observations and research segments to provide excellent experiences, continuously develop brands through unique experiences, and use open collaboration and innovation to maintain technology and services. Nevertheless, this strategy is believed to have benefits, generate revenue, and encourage MICE guests to spend more. Awedyk and Niezgoda (2016) argued that political and economic elements were also found to be important in the MICE industry, especially for stability purposes, as this is required for industry participants to have credibility for the development of industrial MICE. The effects of globalisation and global trends now make it clearer how to strengthen the future of tourism, especially the MICE industry, while keeping its key characteristics, such as implementation expectations, stakeholder participation, and involvement of authorities in monitoring SOP compliance, industry operator network, and vision by government and industry players.

Demands in MICE Industry
The growth of the MICE industry, which includes a variety of hospitality services such as catering, accommodation, transportation, tourism, convention venue supply, entertainment, retail shopping, and others, can be attributed to the increasing globalisation, acquisitions, partnerships, and business expansion among industry players that help companies maintain potential customers' demands. Two articles out of seventeen articles analysed (11.8%) focused on demands, with the majority coming from Emerald Insight (1) and Scopus (1) databases.  (2019) MICE competitiveness includes profit factor, cost factor, tight support factor, and facilitating factor.
Exploring the MICE industry career path Wang and Luo (2018) There are three main types of career paths in the MICE industry and two different kinds of promotion mechanisms, linking social-world Events and social community characteristics. Chen and Chen (2019) described the main reasons for the gap between different cities' competitiveness and the focus of the reform for improving urban MICE competitiveness as tourism total income, tourism foreign exchange income, inbound tourist number, number of exhibitions, exhibition area, number of UFI member cities, and number of ICCA member cities. According to this study, the cost factor has a significant negative impact on urban MICE competitiveness. It has been demonstrated that the higher the average hotel room price and revenue per available room, the less competitive the MICE host city becomes. This study focuses on the elements that reform should prioritise in order to improve urban MICE competitiveness. Given the anticipated changes in relevant legislation, this contribution reflects a decision that will benefit disabled visitors in particular. This research is significant because it demonstrates how an ethical and legal framework can meet the needs of people with disabilities who want to attend the Dubai EXPO 2020. Besides, Wang and Luo (2018) explored the MICE industry career path, which found three main types of career path. According to the study, the career paths are linked to two different kinds of promotion mechanisms, namely the social-world Events and social community characteristics

Challenges in the MICE Industry
At this time, when the entire nation is experiencing the post-COVID-19 period, one of the issues in the MICE industry is challenge. The pandemic has been described as the most difficult situation the world has faced since World War II, due to the confluence of a health disaster and an economic recession (PTI, 2020). Researchers on this topic have examined the economic effects of the MICE industry, particularly events (Gibson et al., 2012;Rogerson, 2012;Yang & Gu, 2012). The difficulty for governments is that they are required to invest vast sums of money that they would prefer to spend on their top priorities. Governments prefer to invest in national services such as health, so the MICE industry is typically not at the top of their investment priorities. The infrastructure required for MICE must be well planned and implemented for the location's advantages to be realised. Five (29.4%) of the seventeen articles that were looked at were about challenges. Most of these came from the Emerald Insight (3) and Science Direct (2) databases.  (2021) The study reveals that the COVID-19 crisis's perceived well-being and predicted duration have a considerable detrimental impact on tourism employees' feelings. The research offers several policies and industry proposals designed to improve the well-being and economic resilience of tourism employees.
Rashid et al.
The findings show that digital transformation is a pervasive challenge for the regional innovation system, requiring a multifaceted set of strategic actions.  (2020) the majority of exhibitors agree they felt comfortable spending their time in the venue and KLCC put themselves in a good mood. Collaborating with these stakeholders leads to the identification of revenue streams for the hotel, operational modifications and even the development of new commercial partnerships.
Infrastructure development and technological advancements are expected to create lucrative opportunities for market expansion. Growth is also likely to be helped by more government programmes to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and more open markets to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). According to Peterson and DiPietro (2021), the perceived health of the COVID-19 crisis and its expected duration, as perceived by the MICE industry, had a significant negative impact on the MICE industry. The study makes several recommendations to improve the well-being and economic resilience of tourism workers. There are a number of additional investigation possibilities for employees who were not affected. According to their research, the perception of MICE industry employees is concerning. These studies show that the pandemic brings uncertainty as well as a risk to their bleak future predictions.
Dioko and Whitfield (2014) suggest that price competitiveness and government incentives for simulating the meetings industry may not be effective in attracting event coordinators designing a new package pricing strategy. The pricing levels were analysed as an indicator of a venue's ability to attract meeting events, but the results were inconclusive. According to this data, the decrease in the number of meetings held in Macau between 2009 and the end of 2012 was caused by a variety of factors other than price competition.
Besides, Brunetti et al (2020) highlighted that crisis management research focuses on crisis management, crisis impact and recovery methods, risk management, risk perception, and disaster management. Looking back on the previous decade (2010-2020), pandemic outbreak concerns, particularly COVID-19, were the most significant events. Risk assessment has become an essential component of crisis management following COVID-19. Prior data privacy through hospitality, participation, and tourism services must be thoroughly reviewed to ensure that the current situation does not change. The authors also stated that one of the critical actions that the MICE industry must take in order to maintain business sustainability in the current environment is to implement a digitalization strategy. They should adjust their vision, invest in smart work, and build relationships with start-ups before reconfiguring their business models. Furthermore, digitalization is about information processing, and because anything can be converted into information, it affects all human activities. It is pervasive, affecting nearly every domain and fundamentally altering the economy and modern society (Rashid et al., 2017). Canhoto and Wei (2020) discovered that an increasing number of businesses are heavily investing in new digital technologies, experimenting with new opportunities, and changing their business strategies. People learn through social media; work with smart machines; send and receive data through tablets and smartphones; and benefit from real-time mobility systems that are integrated, shared, and updated.

Threats in the MICE Industry
The COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant threat to the global MICE industry. Because of the strict lockdown regulations, travel and tourism have been restricted or prohibited. In fact, all MICE events in 2020 were either cancelled or postponed, resulting in significant financial losses for MICE stakeholders. Two of the seventeen articles that were looked at (11.8%) were about threats. The majority of these articles came from the Emerald Insight database (2).  (2021) The study gives a unique insight into how cultural organizations may be operated more inclusively in the future, as venues where people of various ethnic groups can engage positively. The results of this study highlight tourism's resilient nature, trying to demonstrate that it is transformed but does not fade over time.
The global economy is currently experiencing an unprecedented shock because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has threatened economic growth. Prolonged movement control orders, social distancing, and lockdowns precipitated the global economic downturn, disrupted demand and supply chains, reduced the workforce pool, and resulted in numerous job losses (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021;Cooper, 2019). This scenario may result in a decrease in demand for the MICE industry as well as revenue for event organisers or industry participants. According to the analysis in the two articles, this threat has negative effects on the MICE industry now and will continue to do so in the future. This is because a new variant of the COVID-19 virus was found, forcing the government to tighten national borders again to stop international tourists from coming in.

Business Event in MICE Industry
At MICE business events, a large number of individuals (business travellers) are gathered in one location to represent or carry out a specific activity. It helps the company's clientele grow while maintaining its current market position. This strategy can be accomplished in addition to other promotional methods by attending large conferences, seminars, events, exhibitions, and other gatherings. It is possible to host not only business meetings or conferences but also incentive programmes under the category of MICE business events. Three (17.6%) of the seventeen articles examined were about business events, with the majority coming from the Scopus (1) and Science Direct (2) databases.  (2018) The event organizers admitted that tourism leveraging increased the event's target audiences and size, they believed that the major beneficiaries of the leveraging were tourist operators. Keeping the competitive edge of a convention and exhibition center in MICE environment: Identification of event attributes for long-run success An Kim & Hur (2021) The findings of this study provide strategically direction for MICE operators on how they can improve their facility, service, and products.
The three articles indicated that the expansion of the economy is a major contributor to the growth of the MICE business. When the economy suffers-for example, when individuals have less disposable income-the MICE business suffers as well. People just do not have the money to spend on special occasions during difficult times. However, when individuals have more spare income, they have the financial flexibility to spend it on exceptional occasions. The MICE industry brings together several vital elements for modern enterprises while also encouraging individuals and supporting economies. It is energetic and flexible, with an increasing number of specialists. There is reason to expect that this is an important area of tourism that will continue to grow.

Conference Event in MICE Industry
Participants, sponsors, planners, committee members, suppliers, venues, and lodging are all common components of a conference event. Though conferences are generally larger and often span multiple days, two (11.8%) of the seventeen articles examined focused on business events, the majority of which were from the Scopus (2) database. Findings indicated that participants who paid less thought the event organizer's pricing system was fair, and they were more likely to book a hotel via the event organizer in the future.
Industry professionals' perceptions of sustainability in meeting and event education Millar and Park (2018) There is a scarcity of research on MICE sustainability education. The interviewees had conflicting opinions regarding the industry's present sustainability measures.
The conference event is quite large and profitable, grossing millions of dollars worldwide each year, and can be organised to achieve a variety of business, political, cultural, or academic goals. However, the goal is frequently to expand businesses, increase visibility and exposure, strengthen relationships, and, eventually, generate profit. Many governments around the world have made significant investments in creating venues for MICE events, as evidenced by this finding for conference events (Lee & Fenich, 2016). As a result, there are more hotels and purpose-built event spaces than ever before, and older facilities are under increasing pressure to modernise. These venues are still competing with academic, sports, and unconventional venues for additional revenue from the MICE industry, but they must also invest in their amenities to compete for corporate events. Venues and event managers are paying more attention to creating sustainable event spaces, and both new and old facilities are feeling more pressure to meet the environmental standards of event organisers in order to stay competitive. (2018) investigated hospitality managers' general attitudes toward sustainability and discovered that the managers believed students should learn about sustainability in their hospitality courses because it has become a new industry norm. Sustainability should be integrated holistically into all courses rather than as a stand-alone programme because it affects all sectors of hospitality and tourism. Educators are still debating which sustainability-related skills are appropriate and how they should be taught in higher education programmes.

Discussion
The purpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of the review literature on the potential and challenges of the MICE industry. The MICE industry must be accorded the importance it deserves for economic growth. This was accomplished by analysing various studies to determine what types of studies have already been conducted on the opportunities and challenges of the MICE industry, what types of research gaps exist in the field of opportunities and challenges, and to answer the following research sub-questions:

The importance of the MICE industry to economic growth
The first sub-question in the study of the importance of the MICE industry to economic growth is answered using sources from the Scopus, Emerald Insight, and ScienceDirect databases. Table 5 showed only three articles about opportunities out of seventeen articles that had been analysed, and Table 6 showed only two articles about demands out of seventeen articles that had been analysed. Table 5 showed that the benefits of MICE tourism to the local economy and community are numerous and well documented. They are improving the image, which is spreading positive attitudes about a specific area as well as the entire country, and another opportunity is the economic sphere, which is also an event due to the increase in tourist consumption and job vacancies during the event due to the material sphere, which is the construction of infrastructure and superstructure facilities, as well as an opportunity for the socio-cultural sphere, which is increasing the level of interest of locals. Among the advantages of MICE tourism are economic benefits that increase the degree of economic growth by generating hard cash for the host population. The tourism industry is extremely vulnerable to internet-related changes. An examination of buyer behaviour, including e-readiness, leads tourist organisations to expand their online presence. A study of the Polish tourism industry found that 99 percent of tour operators use the internet daily (Kachniewska et al., 2012).
Visitors to conventions and exhibitions are a high-spending market segment when compared to other traditional types of tourists . In recent years, business travellers who attend or participate in conventions and exhibitions have placed a high value on bleisure, or business leisure, by seeking pleasure during their travels through activities such as food hunting, historical or cultural experiences (Ajmal et al., 2021;Pinho & Marques, 2021). These activities preceding, during, and following events have increased the economic impact beyond the events by increasing the duration of stay of MICE participants and enhancing local businesses (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021). According to , MICE can revitalise the local economy and increase tourism, thereby improving the destination's overall image. Thailand, for example, is regarded as one of the best MICE destinations by convention attendees due to its bleisure (business and leisure) hospitality and international standard venues, both of which are critical to the exhibition industry's long-term viability (Rittichainuwat et al., 2020). Awedyk and Niezgoda (2016) agreed that the tourism industry has benefited from Poland's political and economic changes in the last 25 years. Canhoto and Wei (2021) added that economic growth and contributions to social life are critical to its survival, which is dependent on external actors and forces. In other words, MICE is an important part of the travel industry, and places focus on these kinds of events to help the economies of the countries where they are held grow.
Furthermore, events are thought to improve job (employment) prospects and act as catalysts for infrastructure promotion. An et al (2021) highlighted MICE industry growth for holding events in Asian-Pacific countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea rather than in Europe and the United States, which are traditionally strong markets (US). It has been recognised as an important method of enlivening places during off-peak seasons, and it plays a significant role in generating return visits to these destinations (Chen & Chen, 2019). In this scenario, the MICE industry plays an important role by generating revenue, increasing job opportunities within the region for local communities or business owners, and promoting destinations for visitors interested in discovering local beauties (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021). The sociocultural benefits of MICE tourism are another advantage of MICE tourism. MICE tourism benefits a host community socio-cultural by fostering regional values or customs. Furthermore, participation in festivals and events improves host-guest interaction; it may also foster cultural exchange between participants and the host community. Destinations' appeal to both visitors and locals is growing, as is their publicity and media coverage (Pivac et al., 2016).
The exponential advancement of technology has blurred the line between being online and offline; the transition from being in a face-to-face conversation to going online to check on something and then back to face-to-face interaction. According to Ajmal et al (2021), technological advancement and innovation have accelerated the growth of the MICE industry through digital transformation. Social media, for example, has increased openness between suppliers and customers in the tourism industry, resulting in increased competitiveness and consumer power. In this new era of suppliers, they must provide excellent customer experiences. To maintain a technological and service edge, generate ancillary revenues, and increase guest spending through total revenue management, it is necessary to use big data insights, constantly develop the brand through signature experiences, improve collaboration, networking, and open innovation (Richard, 2017). It is their primary means of engaging and elevating business operations and management (Wut et al., 2021). Because of digitalization, the tourist industry's value chain is changing, and whoever gains customer confidence will be the future winner, because confidence appears to release purchasing power. Norway, for example, ranks fifth on the World Economic Forum's Networked Readiness Index (Oskam & Karijomedjo, 2015), with significant potential to lead in online marketing and booking, as well as the digitization of the tourism experience via mobile applications, digital information, and real-time bookings. In this situation, tourism industry players must prepare for a digitised world by improving collaboration, partnership, and communication with other players; staying current with the latest technology through better data analytics; and improving collaboration, partnership, and communication with other players (Canhoto & Wei, 2021).
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this scenario has altered the tourism landscape. It has had a significant impact on global economies (Ajmal et al., 2021). It is referred to as Table 4, and it depicts the flow of published papers prior to and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, research papers focused on the importance of the MICE industry and future strategies. Because of the pandemic's impact, most papers focused on the pandemic's challenges and the industry's response. Regardless of how much the virus has affected their area of residence; the pandemic has unavoidably influenced everyone's tourist choices. As a result, tourists' experiences will be significantly impacted (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021). Table 3 shows that 29.4% of MICE challenges articles and 17.6% of MICE opportunities articles were published. While 11.8% of the articles were about threats, 11.8% were about MICE industry demands. According to these findings, the MICE challenges are the issues that have received the most attention in the MICE market over the last ten years (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021). When it comes to MICE opportunities, the authors rank them higher than the challenges. Also, papers from the same time period talk about the needs and threats of the market, which are both important. Table 6 depicts the MICE industry's demands. The study of career paths has been incorporated into tourism industry research. People are willing to abandon their educational path in order to work in the tourism industry. Education and internship experiences related to tourism have an impact on an individual's decision to pursue a career in the tourism industry (Van Niekerk, 2013). It is because tourism has demonstrated its tenacity, demonstrating that it is a resilient industry capable of overcoming adversity. It has undoubtedly evolved and changed, from the destinations people choose to how they practise tourism. However, it has always survived, becoming one of the most thriving industries (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021). For example, the MICE industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the global tourism sector and is widely regarded as a modern form of tourism that aids in the marketing and branding of tourism destinations. The researchers use the term "more narrowly" to refer to the business events industry in this paper.

The opportunities and challenges faced by the MICE industry in the last ten years
Following that, findings on threat in Table 8 show that, despite the fact that Italy's hospitality industry was the first in Europe to be hit by the virus's devastating impact and to transition through the various stages of COVID-19 containment measures, including the shock of lockdown, the Italian case is an interesting focus for sociological tourism research. COVID-19 caused a 2.1 percent drop in global GDP in 2020, a 2.5 percent drop in developing countries, and a 1.9 percent drop in high-income countries (Maliszewska et al., 2020). Other than social media, political disturbances, and terrorism, health-related crises (including COVID-19), according to Wut et al (2021), have been one of the most significant trends in crisis management in the hospitality and tourism industry. Meanwhile, the virus's spread in Italy has varied greatly across geographical areas (Corbisiero & La Rocca, 2020). Since the outbreak began, the country's north has been the most affected, though the virus eventually spread to all peninsula regions. Fear of contagion has influenced travellers' perceptions of the widespread disease, limiting their social mobility in travel and gatherings (Maliszewska et al., 2020). The challenge is to be prepared for the consequences and to implement a survival strategy within the tourism industry during the crisis (Wut et al., 2021). A worldwide problem has affected many people. It had a significant impact on many industries, particularly tourism, hospitality, air travel, cruises, and road transportation, which have suffered significant losses as a result of fewer travellers (Ajmal et al., 2021;Pinho & Marques, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on MICE activities because leisure travel demand has decreased significantly due to widespread shutdowns (Wut et al., 2021). The pandemic has unavoidably affected and significantly influenced the experiences of travellers (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021).
Employee well-being and engagement, on the other hand, will become even more critical in a post-pandemic tourism economy of shifting tourism demands and visitor (health quality) needs (Peterson & DiPietro, 2021). Business providers or organisers must address their employees' health and safety concerns in order to keep them motivated and positive in their jobs (Wut et al., 2021). According to Ajmal et al (2021), the prolonged movement of control orders, social distancing, and lockdowns triggered the global economic downturn, disrupted demand and supply chains, reduced job employment and opportunities, and resulted in many job losses. Similarly, Canthoto and Wei (2021) stated that continuous employee engagement was critical to the growth of business management and was a valuable source of insight for employee safety and job continuity. Peterson and DiPietro (2021), however, stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has made tourism workers more pessimistic about their personal, financial, health, work, and future well-being, even though it has hurt them in many ways. Table 5 shows that the opportunity to expand into new areas and function on a truly global scale will be fraught with difficulties. Hotel companies will need to maintain brand integrity by providing similar services across borders while also adapting service experiences and facilities to meet the needs of other cultures. Employee training and retention, as well as transferring expertise into new markets, expanding staff capabilities, and adapting to new technologies, will all be critical success factors in entering these new and emerging industries. Working in these new markets necessitates familiarity with regional tastes, customs, and cultural differences (Richard, 2017). Understanding guests, their tastes, and expectations will present its own set of challenges. For a more tailored service, access to and capacity to analyse larger data sets is required, either in-house or through third-party providers. This ability will necessitate the commitment of organisational resources as well as the support of leadership. Co-creating solutions with guests will necessitate a shift in organisational procedures as well as retooling innovation labs to look for solutions outside of the organisation and embrace social media. In this area, strategic actions are needed to adapt to the digital transformation. For example, the public sector, private tourism companies, and local communities need to find a new way to work together for the revaluation of the territory and the development of a new type of tourism that meets tourists' new needs (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021). Following that, as shown in Table 6, many political crises have an impact on the hotel and tourism industries. Historically, for example, the US-Iran war has had a long-term impact on the growth of Iran's tourist industry (Estrada et al., 2020;Khodadadi, 2018). The Hong Kong extradition bill dispute (2019-2020) has recently upended Hong Kong society, particularly the tourism sector (Lee, 2020). More academics are expected to become interested in these situations in order to address various research issues. For destination marketers and other stakeholders, these cases deal with risk and crisis management. Nevertheless, the nature of these events is different, which means that the study results may be different and teach us more about the crisis management industry.
There are some obstacles to the expansion of MICE tourism. Furthermore, sustainable practise is an important aspect that deserves the MICE industry's attention. It has generally become the most important factor in venue selection, taking into account environmental, economic, and social sustainability . According to Hamid et al (2019), MICE venue providers, host communities, and event organisers must incorporate sustainable tourism development practises into their events. For example, one of the most visible environmental issues associated with organising an event is the impact of transportation. This contributes to dangerous emissions into the atmosphere, as well as other negative effects on natural resources. The problem could also be found in the amount of garbage produced and the need for its disposal. Indeed, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has recommended that all tourism sectors implement a sustainable strategy and has provided guidance and best practises on this topic by launching and running a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs4Tourism) session towards the 2030 agenda on UNWTO's official website .
Furthermore, the key areas of influence of events are energy, transportation, waste management, waste reduction, and resource recovery, including materials procurement and procurement. The overuse of these components is harmful to the environment. Using mobility during an event, for example, produces hazardous emissions that are harmful to the environment. To address this issue, event organisers should limit the number of automobiles used at a particular event. Having shuttle buses available, for example, helps to limit the use of smaller vehicles that may only carry a light load. One of the most pressing issues in event management is reducing the environmental impact of transportation. In this regard, MICE destination tourism authorities and marketers must recognise their destination's strengths and weaknesses in order to plan and implement appropriate market strategies . It is also a holistic approach to event planning because it requires meeting the needs of everyone, especially people with disabilities (PWDs), while also optimising tourist satisfaction (De Visser-Amundson et al., 2016). As a result, event marketers and organisers must continue to expand their knowledge of the characteristics of each existing market as well as those pertaining to new emerging market environments . All key players who will innovate in the MICE industry will need to travel safely, responsibly, and smartly in order to get tourism moving again (Corbisiero & Monaco, 2021).

Conclusion
This paper explores the opportunities and challenges that the MICE industry faced when entering the global market in the last decade (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021). The MICE sector's opportunities and challenges can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, including the industry's demands and threats, all of which contribute to economic growth. According to the papers retrieved, the researchers identified significant themes based on their findings, which included opportunities, challenges, demands, threats, business events, and conference events. The study findings indicated that the aforementioned characteristics were consistently emphasised and supported in the majority of the papers reviewed. The outcome was able to shed light on and highlight many important aspects of the MICE industry's opportunities and challenges over the last ten years from the three main databases, which are Science Direct, Scopus, and Emerald Insight. This review has some limitations that should be addressed in future research. Researchers only reviewed the MICE industry in this study, which includes opportunities, challenges, threats to the MICE industry, and MICE industry demands, as well as business events and conference events, to discuss issues related to the industry product to meet market demand. Future research should concentrate on the tourism products available in specific regions such as Europe, Asia-Pacific, and ASEAN. Researchers should consider the MICE industry's opportunities, challenges, threats, demands, business events, and conference events for these regions in their future studies. A review of the MICE industry's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) should broaden the scope of future research in looking towards better MICE industry strategies. Another shortcoming of this assessment is the lack of reference resources for readers to use as a comprehensive guide for the MICE business. This research is limited to publications published between 2011 and 2021 to ensure that the evaluation of MICE business potential and problems is current. The analysis of the study was limited to three databases: Science Direct, Emerald Insight, and Scopus. Nonetheless, the database contains a substantial portion of the existing studies, which makes it useful for laying the groundwork for future research on this topic.