The first essential for any aspiring MICE destination is connectivity. Incheon has no problems on that score. South Korea’s third-largest city hosts the nation’s premier international gateway, Incheon International Airport. The world converges here, and convenient domestic routes by rail, road and air fan out across the country.

When the airport opened in 2001, Incheon initially served merely as a waypoint. But ambitious developments in the past decade, most notably the futuristic waterside district of Songdo (which covers an area equivalent to the footprint of downtown Boston), established Incheon as a destination in its own right.

The MICE sector stands at the forefront of efforts to siphon off some of the 48 million passengers flowing through the airport each year. In 2008 the city unveiled the landmark Songdo Convensia Convention Centre, Asia’s first certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) convention facility.