Reshaping a new concept of MICE sustainability under an urban entropy approach to enhance the legacy to Valencia citizens and optimize energy, matter and information
In the context of Valencia as European Green Capital 2024 and EU Mission City, Zentropy MICE is designed to improve the sustainability and legacy of Meetings, Incentives, Congresses and Events (MICE) tourism in host cities. Valencia aims to pilot a new MICE concept using an urban entropy approach, with its Conference Centre as a test field. Nine sectoral programmes covering areas such as mobility, food and energy, focus on maximising connections between MICE and the city. The goal is to reduce levels of disorder around events, and deliver an innovative way of improving the sustainability and socioeconomic legacy of tourism in urban areas.
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The MICE sector has a significant impact on urban areas, causing high greenhouse gas emissions and intensive energy consumption, but little positive social legacy. However, knowledge-based tourism can generate 30% more income in cities than leisure tourism, with better levels of non-precarious employment and longer average stays. In addition, MICE tourists are changing. New millennials and and Gen Zs tend to have greater climate change awareness, and demand more interactions with cities, integration with local life, and emotional experiences. These factors are the basis of the project approach for the achievement of disruptive change in MICE tourism.
Entropy research focuses on energy, matter, and information exchanges in balanced systems. Cities, as open systems, continuously exchange elements – and as these flows become inefficient, the whole system quickly deteriorates, increasing entropy. When exchanges are highly inefficient, higher amounts of matter and energy are needed to remain balanced. When system elements are well linked, the system is more efficient, and entropy decreases towards zero.
Having been acknowledged as European Green Capital 2024 and EU Mission City, Valencia seeks to apply an entropy approach (energy, matter and information) to the MICE sector, accomplishing low entropy congresses by designing and implementing nine sectoral programmes, such as Mobility, Food, and Social legacy in neighbourhoods. Activities include designing a MICE tourist app, and evaluating changes in entropy through an entropy calculator, in order to compare Zero Entropy (Cs1) with Business As Usual Congresses (Cs0).
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The European Urban Initiative is an essential tool of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy for the 2021-2027 programming period. The initiative established by the European Union supports cities of all sizes, to build their capacity and knowledge, to support innovation and develop transferable and scalable innovative solutions to urban challenges of EU relevance.
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