Meetings, Incentives and Events in Türkiye: The Destination Management Company as Organiser of Business Tourism

Business tourism, commonly grouped under the heading of meetings, incentives, conferences, and events, is one of the higher-value segments of the tourism economy, and Türkiye has developed considerable capacity in it. This paper examines the segment and the specific role of the destination management company in delivering it. It distinguishes the components of business tourism from one another and from leisure travel, describes Türkiye's position as a business-events destination, and analyses the work of assembling and running a meeting or an incentive programme on the ground. Drawing on the event and business-tourism literature and on the operational experience of delivering such programmes, the paper argues that business events place demands on an operator that ordinary leisure tourism does not, in precision, in coordination, and in the management of a client for whom the trip is a professional instrument rather than a holiday. It contends that the destination management company, positioned at the ground end of the chain, is the natural organiser of the on-the-ground programme, and that the value it adds in this segment is unusually visible because the tolerance for failure is unusually low. The paper closes with recommendations for operators, destination bodies, and researchers.