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Why Bali is Indonesia’s best MICE destination
Of MICE and amenities: Bali is famous as a world-class international meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition (MICE) venue thanks to its good security and infrastructure
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f MICE and amenities: Bali is famous as a world-class international meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition (MICE) venue thanks to its good security and infrastructure. (Courtesy of Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa)
The obvious answer to that question is Nusa Dua, a tourist enclave that boasts two of the most well-equipped convention facilities in Indonesia: Bali International Convention Center (BICC) and Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center (BNDCC).
The oldest of the two, BICC, has 26 years of professional event management experience under its belt. With space up to nearly 8,000 square meters, the BICC boasts comprehensive meeting resources for up 10,000 attendants. The resources comprise conference and exhibition halls, ballrooms, auditorium as well as 26 executive meeting venues. All are equipped with advanced audio visual and conferencing technology.
Right across the road is the BICC’s younger neighbor, the BNDCC, which boasts 50,000 sqm of integrated compound with scenic landscape and exquisite Balinese architecture. Owned by Kompas-Gramedia, a giant holding company that also owns Indonesia’s most influential daily Kompas, the BNDCC was inaugurated in 2011 and immediately became a major player in the island’s meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry. It offers 44 multi-functional rooms with 12,000 seats of total capacity.
The BICC and BNDCC have successfully hosted numerous large-scale international events in the past. The latest was the 2018 Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group, during which around 30,000 delegates, including scores of heads of states, from 189 countries descended onto Nusa Dua.
In addition to the availability of those two sprawling MICE venues, Nusa Dua has several other advantages to offer.
Managed by the state-owned Indonesia Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), the premier resort area boasts 19 international four and five-starred hotels with a combined 4,000 available rooms, which make it a lot more easier for any organizer planning on holding a large scale conference. The organizer will not have that nightmarish headache of ferrying hundreds of delegates back and forth from faraway hotels to the conference venues.
Hundreds of additional rooms are also available in the adjacent area of Bualu and Tanjung Benoa. Furthermore, Jimbaran and Kuta, both have excellent and luxurious hotels aplenty, are just a few kilometers away.
Another advantage is Nusa Dua’s close proximity with Ngurah Rai International Airport. A global hub of transportation, Ngurah Rai has flights that connect Bali to almost every major city in the world, a fact that will make life a lot brighter for any organizer of an international event. The airport serves 70 domestic and international airlines and can handle up to 25 million passengers per annum. The existence of the Bali Mandara toll road has made a trip from the airport to Nusa Dua not only much faster but also more scenic.
The least talked-about advantage of Nusa Dua lies in its nature as a gated, walled resort area. It has only two entry and exit points, which make the resort an easy place to secure and monitor. Moreover, an airport and a harbor are both only 20 minutes away, making emergency evacuation a simple affair. These two advantages are the key reason why Nusa Dua was selected to host many important conferences in the past as well as the preferred “holiday palace” away from palace for foreign royalties and state leaders, including King Salman of Saudi Arabia and United States president Ronald Reagan.
Paradisiacal beauty
Yet, Nusa Dua is not the sole reason why Bali is the country’s best MICE destination. Another reason is obviously the paradisiacal beauty of the tropical island’s nature and gorgeous tapestry of its culture. Images of Bali’s well-manicured terraced paddy fields, misty mountain villages, colorful temple procession and spirited dance performances have traveled far and away since the first tourists arrived in the 1920s. These two treasures will ensure that the attendants to any MICE events here enjoy a memorable and enriching experience during their stay.
Furthermore, after five decades of development and improvement, the tourist industry in Bali has reached a level of maturity and sophistication that no other place in Indonesia can compete with. The number and variety of leisure activities on the island will definitely keep even the most hyperactive and demanding traveler busy.
A morning walk through paddy fields and rustic temples while listening to stories about the Hindu philosophy — like the one offered by the charming Agung Rai of Ubud’s ARMA Museum — can be followed with an energizing mountain bike trip in Kintamani or a water sport adventure in Tanjung Benoa before being topped with an exhilarating night-out at one of the glitziest nightclubs in Seminyak.
And when attendants of the MICE events, somehow, suffer the symptoms of homesickness, what better way to treat it than to indulge in the comfort of their respective countries’ foods. In this area, Bali has an array of posh restaurants along Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, Seminyak, Canggu, Sanur and Ubud that offer gastronomical treats from every continent in the world as well from every prevailing culinary trend, from fusion to raw food and pretty much everything in between.
In the last 10 years, Bali’s position as Indonesia’s best MICE destination has been further cemented by the rise of the wedding industry. Luxurious hotels in Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, Sanur and Ubud stepped up their wedding game by inserting better amenities and benefits into their wedding packages, a few have even constructed wedding chapels on their properties. A by-the-sea nuptial and a tropical honeymoon amid a tranquil, rustic village setting apparently is a vision too tantalizing to ignore that the number of these enamored travelers keeps increasing by the year.
All those aforementioned factors and the island’s strong brand image have worked in unison to transform Bali into the undisputed champion of Indonesia’s MICE destination.
