Budgets, destinations, trends: French MICE under the microscope

The new Meetings & Events annual barometer from Kactus was presented on Wednesday, the second day of the IFTM event at Porte de Versailles. It provides some answers for companies forced to navigate in a highly unstable environment, both nationally and internationally. The authors of the Kactus barometer spoke of "budget management under high pressure" as far as BtoB events are concerned. " Companies are redoubling their caution. They are scrutinising every line of expenditure, optimising, comparing and anticipating more. "they describe. A meticulous process, which resulted in an unprecedented trend: for the first time, the budgets initially planned upstream turned out to be lower than those finally confirmed. "This is unprecedented in 30 years," say the experts consulted during the study.

Another finding of the study is that CSR is no longer a luxury Organising a responsible event is becoming affordable, and is therefore becoming more widespread. " CSR moves from intention to action "summarise the authors of the Kactus barometer. They add: " Despite the costs associated with implementing a CSR approach for service providers, the budgetary context is pushing the market, and service providers in particular, to adapt in order to continue to integrate this criterion with a controlled impact on costs. Between 2023 and the 1st half of 2025, the average additional cost of a CSR event compared with an event without CSR has fallen from 22% to 16%. ". For Delphine Brousset, Decathlon's Global Travel Manager, things have changed significantly in just a few months: " Last year, I said that being eco-responsible didn't mean saving money. This is no longer the case" . 

Finally, another major trend identified by the authors of the report is the confirmation of the MICE trend at a geographical level. As already highlighted in the previous edition of the barometer, the Paris region is losing market share to the regions. " Geographic diversification accelerates "summarise the authors of the barometer. " Île-de-France, which has long been the dominant region, is seeing its share of residential seminars fall (34 % compared with 37 %). Several regions are steadily gaining ground: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes held on to second place (13 %), Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur rose sharply (9 % compared with 7 %) and Normandy confirmed its rise (6 % compared with 5 %). This movement reflects a fundamental trend: companies now prefer 'green' formats, accessible by train, aligned with their values and often more competitive. ".

A trend confirmed by Nathalie Lanier, Director of Group Travel at the SNCF: "Volumes have been exploding on the Côte d'Azur for the last 18 months, and we have doubled MICE traffic". Like other market observers, Nathalie Lanier confirms that travel time to a destination such as Nice - which has also greatly expanded its hotel offer - has become more acceptable. This is thanks in no small part to the optimisation of the journey: "The six hours on the train are used for the event. We've turned the journey into useful time, and the event starts on the train" sums up Nathalie Lanier, who also points to the arrival of the new convention centre. OcéaNice, " whose rooftop is set to become a benchmark in the MICE world "according to Ms Lanier. However, the decline in the Ile-de-France region needs to be qualified when it comes to international customers, as Jean Capdeville from Accor points out: " for international customers, Paris and the surrounding region remain the preferred destination ".