MICE and incentives in Turkey: meetings, incentives, congresses and events

The formats we quote are the ones our form recognises: incentive trip, corporate meeting, congress or convention, product launch and other corporate events. For each of them, the operation is made of these blocks:

What is not in this table is not confirmed as a service of our own. If your event needs audiovisual production, stage set-up or the direct contracting of a venue, say so in the request: we will tell you in writing which part we operate and which part stays outside the proposal, before you pass it on to your client.

A MICE proposal is sent within 72 business hours from the moment we have the complete details, net to the agency. It carries the day-by-day programme with working and sightseeing hours, the hotels by category, the transfers and vehicles, the guides, the group meals, the optional activities and the payment and cancellation terms.

What a MICE request needs to be quoted right the first time:

• Type of event: incentive, meeting, congress or convention, product launch or other.
• Number of participants, even if approximate, and room arrangement (doubles, singles).
• Dates and city or cities; if the dates are flexible, the month and the number of nights.
• What you need from the hotel: meeting room (capacity and hours), gala dinner, break areas.
• Balance of work and sightseeing: which days are meeting days and which are social programme.
• Hotel category, guide language and meal plan.
• Airports and times of the international flights, if already known, to size the transfers.

The net price of an event depends on the number of participants, the dates, the hotel category, the spaces requested from the hotel and the activities chosen; that is why there is no published MICE tariff. The quotation form has a block specific to MICE (type of event and needs); you can also send the brief by e-mail.

Once the proposal is accepted in writing, we confirm the hotel and its spaces, the vehicles, the guides and the group meals, and send the final programme with the vouchers, the times of every transfer and the contacts on the ground. The person on the reservations team who prepared the file follows it during the event, and the emergency phone line is answered around the clock.

Operating rules specific to a corporate group in Turkey:

• Working hours come first. The social programme is built around the sessions, and visits are shortened or moved without losing content when a meeting runs over.
• Staggered arrivals. At an event, participants usually arrive on different flights; transfers are sized by time band, and the final flight list is requested before departure.
• Participant list. Full names, exactly as they appear in the passport, are needed for domestic flights and hotels; last-minute changes are handled as far as suppliers allow.
• Calendar. The religious holidays (Ramazan Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı, on moving dates) change opening hours, fill flights and roads and affect the availability of rooms and restaurants; event dates are set with that calendar in view.
• Monuments. Museums have a weekly closing day, working mosques close during prayer times and Hagia Sophia has visiting rules that may change without notice; the social programme is arranged around those restrictions and provides an alternative.
• Cappadocia. The balloon flight is optional, is confirmed in the early hours and is cancelled for wind or visibility; on an incentive it is scheduled for the first available sunrise and the real margin is stated.

Three cities concentrate the MICE operation. Istanbul, with two international airports and the largest hotel supply in the country, is the natural seat of meetings, congresses and launches, and allows a half-day social programme without leaving the city. Cappadocia is the incentive destination par excellence: just over an hour's flight from Istanbul, with landscape, group activities and quality hotels, and the balloon as an optional. Antalya and the Turquoise Coast suit conventions that combine work, sea and visits to ancient sites.

The general commercial terms are the ones published on the agents page: 30% deposit when the booking is confirmed (the full amount for bookings made 30 days or less before departure), 70% balance no later than 31 days before departure, and a cancellation scale of 25% between 89 and 61 days, 50% between 60 and 31 and 100% at 30 days or less. Payment is by bank transfer or credit card, with a 3% surcharge on card payments.

At an event there are also the suppliers' own terms — meeting rooms, gala dinners, room blocks — which may require their own confirmation deadlines and penalties. The proposal states them service by service, so that the agency can pass them on to its client before signing.