1 Introduction

The tourism industry is one of the main economic activities worldwide, consisting of multiple types of tourism, including meeting and business tourism. Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (hereafter MICE) tourism has rapidly emerged as one of the most important and fastest-growing sectors within the whole industry. Getz (2008) defined event tourism as everything that falls within an integrated line of events with a common approach to development, organization, and marketing.

MICE tourism as a segment is on the rise and has a significant multiplier effect on other economic activities in the destinations where it is developed (Yeoman et al. 2014). Before the pandemic, it showed a growing trend, and figures have only continued to rise after it.

On the other hand, digitalization is transforming society and the business world (Kraus et al. 2022a) and MICE tourism is no exception. Many scholars (Haffke et al. 2016) have defined digitalization as a digital transformation that encompasses new communication channels showing more current forms of interaction and participation. Others (Legner et al. 2017) have described it as the changes brought by information technology (IT) to automate parts of activities or tasks.

There are also those who think this digital transformation process seeks to improve an organization by generating important changes in its characteristics by combining new information, computer, information and/or connectivity technologies (Vial 2019).

However, the increasing digitalization and other technological innovations have been partly imposed more rapidly by COVID-19 (Kramer et al. 2023; Standaert et al. 2021).

All of this has sparked researchers’ interest, and academic literature on MICE tourism and digitalization has grown accordingly. These topics are being increasingly studied by authors seeking to analyze digital transformation and MICE tourism in this new post-pandemic scenario in order to reflect upon the changes, the new strategies, and managerial needs of this new reality (Yang et al. 2022; Yung et al. 2022).

IOur aim was to compile and analyze all the literature on MICE tourism and digitalization research to contribute to the academic literature and describe its practical and theoretical implications. Therefore, this work took stock of the knowledge on the topic by studying the following questions:

What are the main changes that digital transformation has caused in MICE tourism, especially post COVID-19 pandemic?

What is the state of the art in MICE tourism and its digitalization from 1997 to 2022?

In order to answer these questions, this paper delimited the conceptual framework to identify the most recurrent and significant topics. Then wecarried out the surveys to identify the terms that would be used as descriptors in the next stage. Secondly, we did a systematic review of the literature (Kraus et al. 2020) by gathering documents from the Web of Science (WoS) database of Clarivate Analytics until 2022; these were then combined with a bibliometric network analysis. For the bibliometric analysis the software SciMAT was used together with a co-occurrence analysis to connect the keywords by establishing the relationships between these keywords (Callon et al. 1991).

The results have been represented through graphs, strategy maps for each of the periods of the study, keyword overlay maps, and a longitudinal map of thematic evolution.

We then discuss the conclusions drawn from our research, which highlight and expand on how MICE tourism and digitalization are of great interest not only for the academic world but also for companies in the industry, given that it is a sector which seeks to continue to grow in a new digitally transformed environment where innovation and technology are crucial.

Studying digital transformation as a concept in a specific sector has not only led us to theoretical contributions, but also to understand how this transformation affects the management of an important economic sector such as MICE tourism.

2 Literature review and theoretical background

The increasing digitalization in the last two decades has had environmental, societal, and institutional implications, which also affects the business world involved in a digital transformation.

There are different digital transformation definitions; according to Stolterman and Fors (2004, p. 689) “digital transformation comprises the changes associated with the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society”. Martin (2008, p. 160) defines digital transformation as “the use of information and communication technology, not when trivial automatization is performed, but in the case where fundamentally new capabilities are created in business, public government, and in the lives of people and society”. Another definition is that “digital transformation is the combined effects of several digital innovations bringing about novel actors (and actor constellations), structures, practices, values, and beliefs that change, threaten, replace or complement existing rules of the game within organizations, ecosystems, industries or fields” (Hinings et al. 2018, p. 53). In short, digital transformation brings about changes at all levels, thus affecting the business world.In the business world, “digital transformation is the use of new digital technologies such as social media, mobile technology, analytics, or embedded devices to enable major business improvements, including enhanced customer experiences, streamlined operations, or new business models” (Fitzgerald et al. 2014, p. 2); in the words of Westerman et al. (2011, p. 5), it “is the use of technology to radically improve the performance or reach of enterprises”. These changes also affect management, as “digital transformation is an ongoing process of strategic renewal that uses advances in digital technologies to build capabilities that refresh or replace an organization´s business model, collaborative approach, and culture” (Warner and Wäger 2019, p. 344), especiallyin marketing as “digitalization and the design and implementation of an e-commerce strategy can help traditional ecosystems evolve toward an entrepreneurial ecosystem” (Song et al. 2022, p. 69). The increasing digitalization of economies showcases the importance of digital transformationand has made our research on digital transformation acquired greater relevance in the last twenty years (Kraus et al. 2021).

However, digital transformation is not only a technological issue, but also a managerial one. “Digital business model innovation refers to purposeful, non-trivial, dynamic changes made to the key elements of a business model by transforming analog, physical objects, processes, or content into primarily (or entirely) digital formats” (Trischler and Li-Ying 2023, p. 19).

Although this phenomenon has been an on-going issue during the last two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic increased its importance, and future research should address the consequences of this throughout different industries and their approaches to digital transformation (Kraus et al. 2022a). Digitalization has a positive influence on competitiveness, thus “digital technologies have generated new business opportunities for entrepreneurs; likewise, digital entrepreneurship allows different entrepreneurs to connect via a platform, thus facilitating access to global markets with growth potential” (Galindo-Martin, Castaño-Martinez and Méndez-Picazo 2023, p. 1809).

This justifies carrying out this research on the impact of digitalization on MICE tourism management, an important industry in some countries such as in Spain.

A tourist is any person who leaves their usual place of residence for a period of less than one year for leisure, business, or other reasons (Martin-Rojo 2020, p. 47). While leisure was the main reason for travelling in the 20th century, in the 21st century new and varied motivations are emerging, such as health, gastronomic, business, congress or convention tourism. Our research focused on business tourism, congresses, conventions, events, fairs and exhibitions, incentives and conferences, and we use herein the term “MICE tourism”, a term made official by the UNWTO in 2007 and stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions to encompass all this activity. The interest in this type of tourism lies in the fact that according to the UNWTO Global Report on the Meetings Industry (2014) it “has reached maturity, positioning itself at the heart of tourism as one of the main drivers of the sector’s development and as an important generator of income, employment and investment” (p. 4).

This tourism segment encompasses the following activities (Martín-Rojo 2022, p. 82–83):

  • Congresses: have a public objective, are organized by professional colleges or associations, universities, or federations, and they are not aimed at doing business. They usually have a fixed frequency, although sometimes they are held on an extraordinary basis, with a minimum duration of two days and of 50 participants.

  • Conferences, seminars, or symposia: may have a public or private purpose and they deal with a highly specialized subject. The minimum duration is 6 h―not always overnight― and there must be a minimum of 50 registrations. Unlike congresses, they are more pragmatic and interactive.

  • Conventions or corporate meetings: organized by a company or business group, with a set business orientation, presenting products, analysis of results, internal training, etc. They usually last 2 days with a minimum of 50 participants.

  • Incentives: trips organized by companies to reward employees’ performance.

  • Trade exhibitions and fairs: aim to bring together the supply and demand of products and services linked to a particular branch of economic activity at a specific time and place.

Based on these definitions, the MICE segment attracts tourists with a medium to high purchasing power and a high prescriptive capacity, and it also has a deseasonalized nature as it takes place mainly on working days. Mice tourist are in a sense “captive” tourist as their destination choice depends on the event venue, fair, congress, etc., some of which take place in the same destination and thus create destination loyalty.

This type of tourism generates wealth in quantitative terms due to the tourists’ high purchasing power it attracts, as well as in qualitative terms by generating knowledge and talent.

These characteristics and the research carried out to determine the requirements a destination must have to develope MICE tourism (Lipianin-Zontek and Zontek 2021; Vaid and Vaid 2020) show that destinations must meet the following conditions.

  • Superior hotel offer.

  • Catering offer with large spaces for events with many participants.

  • Venues (conference and trade fair centers, hotels with conference halls, auditoriums, etc.)

  • Supplementary leisure, shopping, cultural offering, etc.

  • It must be a smart city or smart destination strategically committed to sustainability, accessibility, and new technologies, which favor the development of this type of tourism.

In terms of economic impact, according to the data published by the Association for Management Progress (www.apd.es/turismo-mice-en-auge-espana, November 2020), 20% of the world’s tourists travel for business purposes, and business travel accounts for 53% more expenditure than holiday travel.Meanwhile, the growth of MICE tourism in the last decade has been exponential as it grew by more than 60%.

It is warranted to consider the multiplier effect induced by this activity, as analyzed by authors such as Hu and Yan (2022) and Wan (2022), by differentiating the following actors:-.

Companies specializing in MICE tourism as Professional Conference Organizers (PCO), Trade Fair and Conference Centers, Convention Bureaus, etc.

Service companies hired for the event to take place: translation and interpretation, hostesses, lighting and sound, transport, stand assembly, furniture rental, photography and video, graphic design and printing, catering, protocol, etc.

Companies providing supplementary services to the event: accommodation, catering, travel agencies, leisure, cultural services, etc.

Companies related to marketing: public relations, communication, promotion and advertising, specialized web portals, etc.

Public administrations that should provide services related to destination security, promotion for the attraction of events, preparation of candidatures, etc.

As Gavrila Gavrila and De Lucas Ancillo (2022) and Sedera et al. (2022) have reported, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a series of social changes that have lead to an increased digitalization, all of which have also had an affect on MICE tourism given the transformations taking place in the sector. MICE has seen a shift towards digital webinars, online platforms, holding hybrid events via streaming which require a greater involvement of audiovisual and technology companies. All of this means that events have less physical capacity, more online attendees, and health protocols in place to prevent COVID-19 with PCR testing of attendees to ensure safety.

We can predict that some of these changes are here to stay, such as the multi-site format (e.g., the International Association of Congress Associations World Congress held in November 2020 had its main venue in Taiwan with five sub-sites in other countries, broadcasted via streaming) or the durability of content on the web. This will give a greater international reach to congresses and meetings with less travel by attendees. However, the face-to-face format is expected to continue for trade fairs and events where the physical face-to-face experience cannot be replaced by the virtual format (Lekgau and Tichaawa 2022).

The benefits produced by MICE in the places where it is developed has been made evident by the theoretical framework and the existing literature review; however, MICE tourism management needs to adapt to new social changes, especially the increasingly digitalization seen following the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to 2019 data from the Ranking of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) (2020 is not representative due to the negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry), Spain ranks third worldwide in MICE tourism, just behind the United States and Germany. In 2021, according to ICCA, the United States ranked first in the number of participants who attended congresses and Spain ranked second. In addition, according to a cluster analysis of Spanish tourist attractions, Spain ranked second worldwide in terms of tourist service infrastructure, cultural resources, and business travel (Lascu et al. 2018). Therefore, a survey on how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected a sample of Congress and Trade Fairs and Events Centers, Convention Bureaus and congress offices of City Councils and Tourist Boards in Spain was justified.

As stated in the literature review, there is a commitment to the digitalization of the economy in general, especially in industries such as MICE tourism. The social changes that have taken place in recent decades have led to the global development of MICE tourism, but the COVID-19 pandemic has led to changes in the management of this type of tourism, especially with profound digitalization. Consequently, our paper aims to map the state of the art in MICE tourism and its digitalization from 1997 (the first year in which the first article on MICE and event tourism was found) to 2022.

The research questions of this paper are as follows:

  1. 1.

    What are the main changes that digital transformation have caused in MICE tourism, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic?

To answer this question, a series of surveys were conducted with closed questions and an open question on the impact of the pandemic on the digital transformation and management of MICE tourism. The survey helped us to obtain information on the state of the art and identify the most important aspects to investigate how to adapt the management of MICE tourism to environmental changes.

  1. 2.

    What is the state of the art in MICE tourism and its digitalization from 1997 to 2022?

For this purpose, the surveys results and literature reviewed above were used to choose the terms used in the co-word bibliometric analysis so as to find out what has been researched and what should be studied in future research.

The aim of the bibliometric study was to analyze and examine the studies published from 1997 to 2022 on MICE tourism and its digitalization in order to map the state of knowledge in the academic literature regarding this type of tourism before and after COVID-19. A review of the articles published in journals indexed in the WOS database was carried out with an advanced search for related terms.

Only some studies have analyzed post-pandemic MICE tourism through a bibliometric review. Some authors have examined the impact of COVID-19 on MICE events and post-pandemic changes in MICE tourism in countries in Southern Africa (Lekgau and Tichaawa 2022). Others, such as Schabbing (2022), have tried to study how COVID-19 led to a rethinking of MICE tourism in various German cities. However, we did not find any other bibliometric studies that could:

  • Offer conceptual, theoretical, and methodological suggestions for future research.

  • Contributed to advance knowledge on MICE tourism management and the irruption of digitalization, thus opening up new possibilities for discovering essential future research.

  • Offer practical implications related to innovative strategies so that MICE tourism professionals can promote actions to improve the tourist´s experience based on the results obtained.

All of this justified the present research.

3 Methodology

The purpose of the study is to map the state of the art and research results on MICE tourism with the advent of a global digitalization resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this has influenced the management of companies in this industry.

Our study used a methodology based on two phases. (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Source: Own elaboration

Study methodology. 

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In the first phase, the objective of the study was to find out the main changes caused by t COVID-19 in MICE tourism; it was an exploratory researchthat provided us with a first approach to the subject of study. The methodology in the first stage was based on optimizing the size of the surveyed sample.

The starting point was a survey aimed at those responsible for Fair, Congress and Exhibition Centers, Convention Bureaus and conference offices of City Councils and Tourist Boards in Spain.

The survey consisted of three closed questions and one open question. In the closed questions, ordinal variables were used in two items which allowed us to differentiate between them and order them according to a level. On the other hand, nominal variables were also used to determine the presence or absence of the item content. The open question completed the information of the previous one in case of presence (please refer to the Appendix).

These surveys were carried out from 1 February to 15 July 2022. The sampling procedure was by email, using a simple random sample. The formulation of these items is justified by the fact that companies and their managers have had to adapt to a new digital world (Kraus et al. 2022a), which constituted a challenge for companies in the MICE tourism sector and a need to adapt to the changes due to COVID-19 (Table 1).

Table 1 Data Sheet
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The results obtained in this exploratory survey provided us with an approach to the subject of study. Based on the survey results obtained, the second phase of the study was carried out.

The objective of this second phase was to map the state of the art in MICE tourism and to identify the research topics of greatest interest to improve the competitiveness of this type of tourism by adapting its management to new changes in the environment. For this purpose, a systematic review of the existing literature (Kraus et al. 2020; Bouncken et al. 2015), was combined with a bibliometric network analysis to determine which documents should be included (Holzschuh et al. 2022).

The 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes (PRISMA) guidelines were considered to ensure that all available information was covered in this systematic review (Kraus et al. 2022b; Page et al. 2021; Davaei and Gunkel 2024).

Furthermore, following Callahan (2014) as a reference, a first data search was started in September 2022 by all the authors of the study. A single database, Wos, was used because it is a reference and includes scientific journals with the highest international impact (Horvatinovic et al. 2023). This work first included analysis of all previous existing studies on the subject up to the time of data collection. The snowball method was also used, tracking references in other articles found in Wos, and potentially relevant journals were examined for findings.

After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria (See Fig. 1 for more details), a total of 523 paper were collected.

Eligibility criteria were established to include studies, considering first of all the date, which included the first studies published on the subject up to the year 2022.

Secondly, for the field of study, all papers in the business and management category were included, and all those outside the field scope were excluded.

Thirdly, all papers in the format of article, meeting, review article, dissertation thesis and book were included, whereas patents and letters were rejected.

A filter was then performed with the terms: MICE Tourism, Digital and Business Tourism.

Of all the elements found, those that were not included in the categories of “Management” and “Business” were discarded, thus leaving a total of 105 documents.

Subsequently, we obtained the set of documents on which the bibliometric network software was applied.

The documents were evaluated using the SciMAT bibliometric network analysis tool (Cobo et al. 2011). This tool uses a co-word analysis as a methodological basis; in our case, we used the most salient aspects of the survey results carried out in the first phase as terms. The aim was to identify the contribution of these topics to the entire research field, as well as to determine the most relevant and productive aspects with the greatest impact.

3.1 Data collection

We examined articles published in the core collection of the Web of Science (WoS) database with an advanced search conducted on October 10, 2022 by entering the terms “MICE TOURISM”, “DIGITAL” and “BUSINESS TOURISM”, which were the results of the survey conducted in the first phase.

We included journal articles in the field of business and management and excluded patents and letters. In this advanced search, the Boolean operators “OR” and “AND” were used to connect the keywords. The term “DIGITAL” was entered with “AND”, so that it would always appear because the survey showed it as a relevant result and because digital transformation is the subject of multiple studies and publications (Kraus et al. 2022a).

On the other hand, the connector “OR” was used with the terms “MICE TOURISM” and “BUSINESS TOURISM” since both terms were used interchangeably a decade ago, and our study collects data from much earlier dates.

This database (WoS) has records of articles from the journals with the highest international impact from 1900 to the present. The search was not limited to a particular type of document, but we excluded patents and letters. We did not discriminate by year of publication or by a minimum number of citations received and we considered all of them, reaching a total of 105 references (Sauer and Seuring 2023).

This analysis focused on the keywords above in the total number of documents selected. Therefore, only documents dealing with “MICE”, “DIGITAL”, and “BUSINESS TOURISM” appear.

4 Bibliometric analysis

The methodology applied for bibliometric analysis was a series of steps put forward by Cobo et al. (2011) using the software SciMAT (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Source: Own elaboration

Flow diagram. 

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  1. 1)

    Establishment of periods

    A search was carried out in October 2022, considering two periods: 1997–2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2020–2022 (during and after the COVID-19 pandemic); the software SciMAT was used to determine the thematic evolution of the proposed terms, using the methodological basis of co-word analysis. The methodological basis of the co-word analysis was based on the idea that the co-occurrence of key terms described the content of the documents in an archive (Callon et al. 1991).

  2. 2)

    Obtaining the most important necessary information from the documents collected at the beginning. Here the frequency of co-occurrence of keywords was considered.

  3. 3)

    Calculation of the similarity measure to normalize the network; in our case, by means of the equivalence index (Callon et al. 1991).

  4. 4)

    Formation of the different clusters through the approximation of subgroups of keywords that are strongly linked. There are other clustering methods; the Simple Centers Algorithm was used in the study (Coulter et al. 1998; Cobo et al. 2011).

  5. 5)

    Selection of bibliometric measures of performance and quality. Average citations and h-indexes (Hirsch 2005) were obtained.

  6. 6)

    Selection of the similarity measure used to make the evolution and the overlay map. The Jaccard Index and Salton’s cosine were used in this analysis.

  7. 7)

    Visualization through strategic diagrams and longitudinal thematic evolution maps. Among others, two types of maps were generated:

Strategy maps: these are presented as an open 2 × 2 matrix where four possible themes are represented depending on the quadrant where the cluster is located, together with the parameters of “density” and “centrality”, as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Source: Adapted from SciMAT

Strategy map diagram. 

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Overlay maps and longitudinal thematic evolution maps: they present clusters of themes evolving throughout different sub-periods. Graphically they appear as clusters linked between periods by continuous lines (where themes have the same keywords) or dashed lines (where elements other than theme names are shared).

In this bibliometric analysis, the bibliographic material was examined objectively and quantitatively, which was useful for organizing data specific to each thematic field. (Merigó et al. 2015).

This open-source scientific mapping software application allows the user to perform bibliometric network-based studies (co-word, co-citation, author co-citation, journal co-citation, co-author, bibliographic linking, journal bibliographic linking and author bibliographic linking). It is possible to choose different normalization and similarity measures such as: strength of association, equivalence index, inclusion index, Jaccard index, and Salton cosine. On the other hand, different clustering algorithms can be used to distribute the data, allowing the elaboration of strategic maps and thematic networks with respect to a set of previous documents. (Cobo, López-Herrera, Herrera-Viedma and Herrera 2012). The unit used in our analysis was the author’s keywords and the keywords corresponding to the publication source.

5 Results

The survey was carried out among a significant sample of heads of conference centers, trade fairs and exhibitions, convention bureaus, and congress offices of local councils and tourist boards in Spain during 1 February to 15 July 2022.

According to Bello et al. (1994), considering a finite population (less than or equal to 100,000), the expression of the sample size would be as follows:

$$N = \frac{{{Z^2}NpP\left( {1 - P} \right)}}{{\left( {Np - 1} \right){K^2} + {Z^2}P(1 - P)}}$$

Where:

N = Sample size.

Np = Population size.

Z = Number of standard deviation units in the normal distribution that will produce the desired degree of confidence.

K = Error or maximum difference between the sample proportion and the proportion of the population that we are willing to accept at the desired confidence level.

P = Percentage of the population possessing the characteristics of interest.

The values used were:

Np = 93.

Z = 1.96, value corresponding to a confidence level of 95%.

K = 0.05; error window: 5%.

P = 0.5, since this percentage was not known in advance, the worst-case scenario of working with 50% was used.

Using the formula above with these values, the sample size is 75.

The results obtained in the first phase are included in the following table.

Table 2 Results of the first phase
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Table 2 shows the percentages of favourable responses to each question (number of positive responses/ sample size x 100).

In the second phase, for the systematic literature review, we selected documents from the Web of Science (WoS) database based on the highlighted terms fromthe first phase of the study,which resulted in a total of 105 papers from 1997 to 2022, showing an upward trend throughout the entire period. This shows the interest in the topics and how these documents can serve as a backbone and guide for new management formulas that contribute to the development of the sector. (Kraus et al. 2024).

It also helped us to identify the main papers that have made significant contributions to the development of the topic (Kraus et al. 2023). These quantitative indicators measure the relevance of a field of research and are represented by the number of publications (Martínez-Climent et al. 2018), showing a considerable increase in scientific production over the last three years. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4
figure 4

Source: Own elaboration based on WOS data

Number of publications per year. 

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The results obtained in the first phase of our study methodology using descriptive statistical techniques were used for the bibliometric analysis: MICE tourism, Business Tourism and Digitalization.

After this bibliometric analysis, the most significant results obtained from the strategy maps were:

  • In the pre-pandemic period (1997–2019):

  • 46% of the documents belong to this period. We must highlight that “digital business transformation”, “experience”, “tourism”, and “event tourism” were among the most developed topics, which are issues that have driven research during this period. However, there is also a great interest in other less developed but significant and transversal topics that could be studied in future research, such as sustainability (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5
figure 5

Source: Own elaboration

Strategy map (1997–2019). 

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  • In the period from 2020 to 2022:

  • 54% of the records analyzed correspond to this period, where the most developed driving themes include “mediating-role” and “behavior”; however, there is great interest in other topics such as “technology”, “innovation”, “social media”, and “destination”. Interestingly, this coincides with the digitalization advances being developed in MICE tourism, as confirmed by the surveys carried out. Other worth noting emerging topics are “COVID-19” and “industry” (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6
figure 6

Source: Own elaboration

Strategy map (2020–2022). 

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On the other hand, to analyse the evolution of the keywords, we took the overlap map, which measures the number of keywords shared between successive sub-periods, and we observed the evolution of the keywords over the two periods of study in Fig. 7, where each circle represents a period. The number of keywords in each period is represented inside the circle. The arrows linking the different periods (the horizontal ones) represent the number of keywords shared between them. The top incoming arrows represent the number of new keywords that emerged in a particular period, and the top outgoing arrows represent the keywords that disappeared after a given period and were not included in the next period.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Source: Own elaboration based on WOS data

Keyword overlap map (1997–2022). 

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As it can be seen from the graphs, this is a research field with much growth ahead of it, as the number of incoming words doubled the number of outgoing words, which shows its interest in the scientific community. Finally, once we analysed how keywords evolved, we proceeded to study how the themes in the research field evolved based on the longitudinal map results, which provided us with information on how the themes had evolved by period and were linked to each other (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
figure 8

Source: Own elaboration

Longitudinal map of thematic evolution. 

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Figure 8 represents the evolution of themes in MICE, Business Tourism and Digitalization research starting from the first period (1997–2019; first column) to the second period (2020–2022; second column). The continuous lines indicate that the linked topics share the subject, and the dashed lines mean that the topics share elements that are not the of the topic. On the other hand, the volume of the spheres is proportional to the number of papers published on each topic: “MICE tourism”, “Business Tourism”, and “Digital”.

The results show that the most cited concepts in the first period (1997–2019) were “Sustainability”, “Business Tourism”, “Digital”, and “Exhibitions”, which evolved in the following period (2020–2022) as follows:

“Sustainability” evolved to “Innovation” and― to a lesser extent― to “higher-education”.

“Business tourism” was relevant as it was highly cited during the second period to topics such as “destination”, “creation” and “COVID-19”; however, this relationship is represented with dashed lines as it shares elements other than the subject title.

“Digital” also stands out and was linked in the second period to “industry-4”, which is closely related to information technology (IT) systems and digitalization.

Despite not having many citations, ¨Exhibition as a concept also stands out but shows a strong link (a very marked continuous line) with the same theme in the second period, which gives us an idea of its development and potential. Similarly, “Internet” also shares a thematic area and is linked with a continuous line in both periods.

All of the above leads us to affirm that “sustainability”, as a central pillar of the tourism sector in general and MICE in particular, has evolved towards “innovation”. This results from needing greater innovation to minimize environmental impact, preserve natural resources, and in the case of MICE Tourism, innovate in responsible practices that benefit different communities, countries, and promote cultural understanding. All of this is vital to ensure the sector’s growth.

On the other hand, the evolutionary relationship between “digital” and “Indutry-4” is significant. The results of these concepts between the first and second periods show how “digital” has taken a step forward in the last three years at a global level. The MICE sector is therefore in a period of total digital transformation. That is the reason for the emergence of “Industry-4” as a new concept. The sector not only uses digital as a tool for innovation, but digital has changed how the way MICE tourism operates as environments become more competitive. Industry 4.0 can improve MICE business operations, affect how customers interact with them, and lead to completely new products and/or services.

6 Discussion

This paper proposed two research questions:

What are the main changes that the digital transformation has caused in MICE tourism, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic?

What is the state of the art in MICE tourism and its digitalization from 1997 to 2022?

Regarding the first research question, the descriptive statistical analysis shows that the survey respondents in the sample highlight the incorporation of new information technologies in the management of their events, as well as the fact that the pandemic forced them to incorporate changes that are here to stay, such as hybrid events and the increasingly streaming of events.

This situation led us to delve into the vision that the academic world has of this industry, given its importance in the tourism industry, as this could establish guidelines from which the business world can use to guide their strategies and management. This justified the second question of our research.

Based on the bibliometric results, it is clear that prior to COVID-19 researchers focused their studies on the MICE sector on topics such as digital-business, transformation, experience, tourism and event-tourism, and they only began to consider research on issues such as technology, innovation, social media and destination after the pandemic.

The bibliometric study aimed analyse the studies published from 1997 to 2022 on MICE Tourism and its digitalization, but only some studies have used a bibliometric review to analysed post-pandemic MICE Tourism with. There are authors examining the impact of covid-19 on MICE events and post-pandemic changes in South African countries (Lekgau and Tichaawa 2022). Others, such as Schabbing (2022), studied how covid will make different German cities reimagine MICE Tourism. However, we did not find more bibliometric studies that offered conceptual, theoretical, and methodological suggestions for future research or contributed to advancing our knowledge on MICE Tourism management and the irruption of digitalization for discovering essential future research or giving practical implications on innovative strategies so MICE Tourism professionals can promote actions to improve the tourist experience.

As to the number of authors and journals published on these topics, we found that they almost doubled in the second period of our study, results confirmed by prior studies on the topic. Authors such as Stolterman and Fors (2004), Martin (2008) or Hinnings et al. (2018) had previously confirmed that digital transformation brings changes at all levels, but it also affects the business world. Authors such as Fitzgerald et al. (2014), Westerman et al. (2011), Warner and Wäger (2019) or Song et al. (2022) claimed that digital transformation affects the management of companies, and although this phenomenon has been an on-going issue during the last two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic increased its significance (Kraus et al. 2022a). Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of social changes are taking place, leading to increased digitalization, as reported in the works of Gavrila and De Lucas Ancillo (2022) and Sedera et al. (2022), which also have repercussions in MICE Tourism where transformations have taken place, such as digital transformation (webinars, online), holding events in a semi-presential manner via streaming, with a greater weight of audiovisual and technology companies; and more online than physical attendees.

We can predict that some of these changes are here to stay, however, the face-to-face format will continue for trade fairs and events where the physical, face-to-face experience is irreplaceable by the virtual one (Lekgau and Tichaawa 2022). Likewise, this research confirms the need for management practices that take into consideration the increasing digitalization.

This research is a theoretical contribution to MICE tourism based on a bibliometric analysis of the state of the art in this field and it also identifies the most significant topics in MICE Tourism management before, during, and after the pandemic. Apart from carrying out surveys to find out the main changes that have taken place in the industry after the pandemic, we were able to confirm that there is a need for new management practices, especially digitalization. In fact the bibliometric analysis showed that after COVID-19 there is great interest in subjects such as technology, innovation, social media and destination. We thus conclude that it is necessary to innovate in destination management to develop MICE tourism and to commit to greater digitalization; for example, the main practical implication is perhaps that MICE tourism should be promoted in smart destinations. Based on the results obtain, we propose further research on innovation, digitalization, social networks, and destination analysis to improve MICE tourism management.

The innovation and contribution of this research lies in its bibliometric analysis on MICE tourism and digitalization since according to the Web of Science (WoS) database advanced search conducted on October 10, 2022 by entering the terms “MICE TOURISM”, “DIGITAL” and “BUSINESS TOURISM”, there is only one article that carries out a review of the existing literature in the period 2000–2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic (Zazueta and Velarde: “Research on Meeting Tourism in the period from 2000–2019: A literature review”, in Pasos-Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural 20(3), July-September 2022). Furthermore, based on the bibliometric analysis (a total of 105 papers from 1997 to 2022 were obtained for this analysis) and the surveys carried out, it is possible to identify new trends in MICE tourism after the pandemic to design new business management models that adapt to this new reality in future lines of research.

This research is not without limitations. The document selection was carried out only in the Web of Science (WoS) database, which may have led to the omission of articles of interest not included in this database. On the other hand, the different interpretations and definitions used for “MICE tourism”, “Business Tourism”, and “Digital” may have led to a bias in the search conducted. However, although the sample of 105 articles may seem insufficient at first glance, we consider it sufficient for the purpose herein, as we have taken the totality of records that the database yielded with the advanced search parameters described above. Nevertheless, in future research the selection of documents will be carried out in other databases.

Another limitation is that in the first phase of the research the survey was carried out among a significant sample of heads of conference centers, trade fairs and exhibitions, convention bureaus, and congress offices of local councils and tourist boards in Spain. In future research it would be carried out among a sample of managers in other countries, for example in the United Stated that ranked first in the number of participants who attended congresses ―Spain ranked second―.

7 Conclusions

The social changes that have taken place in recent decades have led to the global development of a particular type of tourism: MICE tourism. Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to changes in the management of this type of tourism in general and in the companies that develop it in particular, with an intense digitalization in the management of this economic activity.

This is evidenced both in the fieldwork conducted through surveys and in the bibliometric analysis carried out in this research, and, as presented in the literature review, other authors have also shown this. While from 1997 to 2019 there was a great deal of interest in underdeveloped topics such as MICE tourism, tourism management and sustainability, from 2020 onwards there have been significant changes in MICE tourism with increased digitalization.

The interest seen from 2020 onwards in issues such as technology, innovation, social media, and destination highlight the need to develop new management practices that take into account new information and communication technologies in the current dynamic and changing environment for companies and institutions working in MICE tourism. On the other hand, the interest in destinations suggests that events will not only be online but will also have a face-to-face nature, although accompanied by new technologies; it is important that this digitalization also takes place in the management of destinations, with a commitment to the creation of smart destinations to develop this type of tourism.

This paper’s main contribution to theory is its analysis of the concept of digital transformation and how it affects the management of an important economic sector: MICE tourism. There were previous works devoted to digital digitalization, but this paper presents the state of the art of digitalization in a particular sector (MICE tourism) based on a bibliometric analysis.

As for its social implications, it is worth highlighting the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on society, such as changing work habits in favor of greater digitalization and also the habits of MICE tourists who choose to combine face-to-face events with online or hybrid events; and in some cases, events are held in several sub-venues, in addition to the main venue, connecting via streaming, thus the importance of innovating in designing new MICE product and destinations where these events are held, as well as using new technologies and social networks to manage this economic activity.

Based on the surveys carried out to identify the main changes in the industry after the pandemic and according to the results of the bibliometric analysis, this paper’s main pragmatic contribution is that after Covid-19 there is great interest in issues such as technology, innovation, social media, and destination, so it is necessary to innovate in the management of tourism companies and destinations to develop MICE tourism and to commit to greater digitalization by promoting the development of MICE tourism in smart destinations.

While from 1997 to 2019 there was a great deal of interest in underdeveloped topics such as MICE Tourism, Tourism Management and sustainability, from 2020 onwards, there has been significant changes in MICE Tourism with increased digitalization. From 2020 onwards, interest in issues such as technology, innovation, social media and destination, highlight the need for companies and institutions working in MICE tourism to develop a new management. Also, it is important that this digitalization takes place in the management of destinations, with a commitment to Smart Destination for the development of this type of tourism.

Thus, this research has allowed us to identify the new trends in MICE tourism after the pandemic and to design business management models that adapt to the new situation of the environment in future research.