MICE is the abbreviation for meeting, incentive travel, conference and event.
China Star is the first Chinese-owned MICE company and the first private MICE company in mainland China.
China Star’s trademark "翔( Xiang )" symbolizes "the sheep with wings." Liu Ping, the founder of China Star, was born in the Year of the Sheep. She believes that reform and opening up in China has given her wings and made her able to fly high in the sky to fulfill her dreams.
The earliest inbound tourism market in China was monopolized by three large state-owned travel companies. During the years of anarchy in China, inbound tourism was categorized into foreign affairs and was strictly managed by the relevant government departments.
Since the reform and opening-up, inbound tourism had gradually become commercialized, but it was still monopolized by government enterprises for a relatively long period of time.
As China deepened its reform and openingup, incentive groups began to visit China in the 1980’s. At that time, China knew very little about incentive travel. The vast majority of US incentive groups or high-end tour groups travelled to mainland China through Hong Kong travel agencies. Travel agencies in mainland China only offered land services under the deployment of Hong Kong companies. They didn’t have the opportunity or condition to directly develop the international incentive travel market. European incentive travel companies had relatively more direct contact with travel agencies in mainland China. However, since travel agencies in mainland China were mainly engaged in handling conventional leisure tours, mainland China had no knowledge about incentive travel and had no ideas about the international standards. Therefore, for a long period of time, instead of actively creating sophisticated and once in a lifetime experience for incentive travel programs in combination with Chinese characteristics and culture, travel agencies in mainland China only passively offered services following whatever the clients required.
From 1992 to 2001, when Liu Ping was working for China International Travel Service Head Office, she had the opportunity to get direct exposure to the incentive travel market in the Netherlands and Belgium, and was inspired and enlightened by the charm of this kind of motivational travel products. With the increase in awareness of incentive travel, she believed that mainland China had the ability to handle incentive travel products and eventually achieve international standards.
When China successfully entered into the WTO, Liu Ping realized that it was the time to do something different. She decided to resign from the secure job and set up a company specializing in meetings and incentive travel programs. Liu Ping never imagined that it would take her three and a half years to obtain the business license for a private travel company. China Star was formally established in July 2005. Since then, China Star has had the first domestic company focusing only on inbound MICE business, filling the gap in the history of Chinese tourism industry.
When China Star was first established, the main business came from the “Ambassador Programs” and the incentive houses or companies from European countries. During the years of 2004-2014, the "Ambassador Programs", together with China Star, organized a number of Sino-U.S. bilateral academic conferences. China Star was learning through practice and mastered the basic skills for meeting planning and management which laid a solid foundation for marketing the meetings and conferences.
Thanks to the joint efforts by Chinese peers of MICE industry, several MICE companies ( for inbound business only ) have grown up and reached international standards, which is as significant as the achievement made in the other industries of China during China’s economic performance and opening up.
The incentive groups China Star received at the initial period of its establishment were essentially different from the groups of traditional leisure tours. With years of study and practice, China Star has reached and even, to some extent, surpassed the world advanced level in terms of the creativity, execution and management of MICE products.
