u/Every-Jellyfish-5823

’ve been working as a freelance travel planner, mostly handling personalized trips (itineraries, bookings, coordination).

Now I want to move into corporate MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, events), but I’m hitting a wall on how to break in without existing corporate clients or case studies.

From what I understand, this space is heavily relationship-driven and credibility matters a lot more than in B2C travel.

My questions:

• What’s the most realistic way to land the first corporate client in MICE without prior corporate experience?
• Is it better to:
  • pitch directly to small companies
• What actually matters more early on: pricing, execution capability, or network?

I’m not looking for generic advice—would really appreciate insights from people who’ve either built or worked in this space.

What would you do if you had to start from zero again?