Chiang Mai, located in Northern Thailand, has been a popular tourist destination for many years.  Until recently, most accommodation in Chiang Mai are tourist class or simple resort-styled.  A few years ago, the city started trying to jump onto the MICE bandwagon as this sector has been growing rapidly until the global financial crisis last year.  With the world economy turning rosy again, all the new convention hotels that have sprung up like weeds in the past one or two years are jostling to make up for a rather flat year of 2009.

Chiang Mai now has more hotels with convention facilities to house events with 600 or more guests.  Resort and boutique hotels cater to smaller, more exclusive groups.  While a major convention centre is still in the works, the existing Empress Convention Center, opened in 2008, has fairly good facilities, including a pillar-less hall, for events of up to 1,500 delegates and mid-size exhibitions, although the adjoining hotel is not quite international five-star standard.

Chiang Mai has much to offer for MICE groups, apart from the rather standard temple, elephant camp and handicrafts tour.  For corporate meeting or incentive groups, a cooking lesson and contest at the Four Seasons Hotel, set in the midst of paddy fields, is one great team-building activity.  Incentive groups will also be awed by the experience of releasing lanterns into the night sky from the vast compounds of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  For those with strong sense of social responsibility, why not organize a special program to benefit a local orphanage or give offerings to buddhist monks?  The more adventurous can go for flying fox activities in the jungle.

As an added incentive, the Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau, under its newly launched Thailand Maximizes program, will reward organizers who bring conventions, meetings or incentive groups to Chiang Mai or any part of the country.  Hence, there is truly great value for the money to hold an event here.