The Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) announced in a statement yesterday that over 200,000 people participated in local MICE events in the first quarter, including 15,000 business tourists who attended local meetings.
IPIM said it expected over 20,000 business tourists to visit Macau for MICE events in the second half of the year, the statement noted.
The statement went on to say that in order to turn Macau into an ideal MICE destination, IPIM continues to work with the local MICE industry and integrated tourism and leisure enterprises to enhance the soft and hard skills of Macau’s MICE industry, with a view to attracting more large-scale and high-quality international exhibitions, industry fairs and multinational corporate summits to be held in Macau.
The statement quoted recent conference organisers as pointing out that Macau is one of the few destinations for conventions that can cater to over 10,000 attendees, thanks to its concentration of hotels, convention venues and tourism resources, which enables the participants to make good use of their time after the conference to experience the city’s “charm”.
The organisers also noted that many first-quarter attendees chose to extend their stay in Macau to experience the local culture and spend money in different tourist attractions, adding that they expressed their willingness to choose Macau again as a venue for major events, as they have enjoyed the local government’s support and services during the preparation process, the statement noted.
The statement noted that a 16,000-seat MICE centre will open this year, pointing out that currently there are over 240,000 square metres of convention and exhibition space and 40,000 hotel rooms in Macau, meeting the needs of all sizes and types of conventions and exhibitions.
In terms of soft power, the statement noted, the MICE industry has also made different levels of progress in terms of professionalism, attracting well-known and large-scale events to Macau, and increasing the number of international visitors, so as to add new momentum to the city’s appropriately diversified economic development.
This handout photo provided by the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) shows a large corporate conference involving of over 10,000 people that was recently held at the newly-opened Galaxy International Convention Centre (GICC) in Cotai.
