Hiring international marketing agents is an important tool for developing the inbound MICE business. China’s large-scale state-owned travel companies have strong capital and human resources, so, normally, they do not adopt the internationally popular “marketing agency model”, especially in the 1980s and 1990s when the inbound travel market was monopolized by a couple of big state-owned companies. At that time, “marketing agency model” was not suitable for China. Since the beginning of the new century, the monopoly has been broken and competition has been created along with the tourism industry opening to the market. The market shares have been divided. Overseas MICE companies have entered China together with their marketing models, which is inspiring the domestic travel companies to learn and to follow the international practice.
Since 2005, China Star has successively hired marketing agents in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, North America and other countries and regions. These marketing agents maintain the overseas influence of China Star, promote China Star’s brand and expand the company reputation that eventually helps China Star win business opportunities. At the same time, China Star's outstanding performance has also added honors to overseas marketing agents and has improved their credibility.
Participating in the MICE industry exhibition as an exhibitor is another important model for China Star to develop the international market. The industry exhibitions China Star participates in include:
IMEX Frankfurt
Las Vegas IMEX
Barcelona World IBTM
Beijing IBTM
Shanghai IT&CM
The inbound incentive travel has a higher threshold than people expect. It takes several years of unremitting efforts to make a corresponding return.
Though the inbound travel market is faced with continued downturn, China Star insists on investing in the market of meetings and incentive travel. China Star is not only trying to attract business for itself, but more importantly, as a small private company, it actively fulfills its corporate social responsibility and promotes China to the world in the course of its own development.
