MICE media mayhem

Actually, it's not that bad, I just couldn't resist the 3rd "m". However, I was interested to see my friend Kenny Coyle popping up as editor of a new magazine, Mix (the "i" is upside down in the logo). It's always a good sign that the economy is heating up when travel-related media start to proliferate.

Mix joins Kenny's former magazine, Haymarket's CEI Asia/Pacific and TTG MICE from my former colleagues down in Singapore. They all focus primarily on the corporate meetings and incentives elements of business events (the "M" and the "I" of the MICE acronym), competing vigourously for hotel advertising.

If you've already clicked on the Mix hyperlink above, you'll see it takes you to Panacea Publishing, the company spun off from Euromoney in 2005 to publish Business Traveller. I met the boss in Singapore in July: Julian Gregory led the MBO and I'm pleased to see this relative newcomer of a company doing well. Its Asia operations are run from Hong Kong by another former colleague of mine, Peggy Teo.

I have worked with people involved in all three of these publications, so wish them all well. However, it's hard for me to believe that this relatively niche market has room for 3 competing magazines in Asia. Who will blink first?

Update: Thanks to Kenny for setting me straight. There are actually 4 magazines in this space in Asia. Reed's TravelWeekly group in Singapore still has its Events magazine which I have to confess I'd forgotten about.