MICE thrives globally but outdated payments do not. At the Travel MICE & Corporate Show, a panel highlighted how this costly mismatch puts much at stake for the planners.
MT Bureau
It is a scenario every MICE agent knows only too well. The destination is locked, the hotel contract signed, AV, entertainment, F&B, and transfers all lined up. Everything looks perfect until a payment gets stuck. The vendor in Thailand will not accept a wire transfer. The host in Barcelona insists on local currency. The AV team in Zurich refuses to set up until the funds hit their account and just like that, seamless planning turns into the chaos of cross-border payments.
At the Travel MICE & Corporate Show held in Chennai, this chaos took centre stage in a session. The panel discussion, ‘Managing Multi-Vendor Payments Across Borders’, hit a raw nerve with the crowd, many of whom have quietly battled the same issues for years. The panellists brought their perspectives to the table and shared a brutally honest picture of how payments are the invisible stress point in international events, and why they need immediate fixing.
The moderator, Sandhya Lokhande, Regional Category Manager (Travel)-Indirect Procurement AMEA, Syngenta Group, framed the conversation with a sharp truth. “We have made great strides in how we plan and scale MICE,” she said, “but our payment systems are still stuck in the past. If we do not address this, we are limiting how far and fast this industry can grow.” Presenting a real-world example, Trishal Rao, Chief Sales Officer, Skil Corporate Travel Solutions, said, “Once, we had four events in four countries in a week — Switzerland, Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam,” he said. “Each had five to six vendors. That was 20–30 payments in a single week, across time zones, currencies, and local tax systems. It was mayhem.”
His team scrambled between SWIFT transfers, NEFT, third-party fintech platforms, and whatever else could get the job done. “My finance team was pulling their hair out,” he admitted. “The job was done but it was not smooth, and it definitely was
not scalable.”
For corporate buyers, the pain point is just as sharp. Anjali Chugh, Head, MICE & Strategic Engagements, Nuvama Group, explained how tough it is to stay compliant. “At times, you have vendors who only accept cash. Some of them refuse to give proper invoices, while some insist on local bank transfers in obscure formats,” she said. “It becomes a compliance nightmare, and when your internal audit team gets involved, it turns into a war.”
So how are companies coping? For many, the answer lies in middlemen, agencies, or DMCs who step in to make payments on their behalf. “But that comes at a price,” Chugh said. “There is always a convenience fee and while you might solve the immediate problem, it does not help you build a long-term system.”
That is where Ravi Sattavan, Director, Visa Commercial Solutions, India, stepped in to offer a glimpse into what the future of payments could look like and in some cases, already does. “Virtual cards are tailor-made for this,” he said. “You can generate them instantly, restrict usage by vendor, geography, date, or amount, and you get real-time visibility.”
For agents handling multi-country events, it is a huge upgrade over the slow, documentation-heavy process of international wire transfers. “We have seen companies cut down turnaround time from five days to five minutes,” Sattavan said. “It is safer as you are not sharing bank details or chasing confirmations. It just works.”
However, the real issue is adoption. “Not every vendor is ready for this. That is why we are proactively helping identify and onboard suppliers. We are also building intelligence into the system so corporates can know who is already accepting card-based payments.”
Varghese Chettupuzha, Global Category Lead, Meetings and Events, Accenture, added another layer to the discussion. He informed that his team often routes payments through their local offices in different countries, which reduces compliance risk and speeds up processing. “Although I know it is a luxury that most smaller players do not have,” he said. “What is non-negotiable is vendor onboarding. If a supplier cannot invoice in international currencies, we do not work with them.”
The panel also explored what the future might hold for MICE planners. Sattavan outlined tools already in development — AI-driven platforms that could flag the best time to make payments based on forex trends, cards that support over 20 currencies, and agentic commerce systems that automate repetitive tasks, such as invoice processing or compliance checks.
Meanwhile, Chugh made a statement that resonated with many in the room — “What we need is a tool that allows us to lock forex rates at the time of budgeting and still pay the same rate when the event goes live. That alone would save lakhs.”
As the session wrapped up, panellists concurred that for the MICE trade, payments are not just a back-office job anymore. They are central to how smooth, or how stressful, a project becomes. In a competitive landscape of event industry where clients expect speed, transparency, and control, the ability to pay smarter could become your strongest selling point as Rao said, “Great events are not enough. If your vendor does not get paid on time, the whole experience can unravel, and no client forgets that.”
For travel agents and MICE operators, the key takeaway was that if your payment methods still rely on manual hacks, outdated bank processes, or WhatsApp chases, you are not just risking margins, you are risking your reputation. Because in MICE, money does not only talk. It decides whether the show goes on. The immediate solution for MICE operators to avoid any payment chaos is to evolve along with their customers and vendors.
How are the companies coping? For many, the answer lies in middlemen, agencies, or DMCs who step in to make payments on their behalf
For agents handling multi-country events, virtual cards are a huge upgrade over the slow, documentation-heavy process of international wire transfers
For the MICE trade, payments are not just a back-office job anymore. They are central to how smooth, or how stressful, a project becomes
