The first three months of 2018 saw fewer MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) events in Macau than during the same period last year, partially compensated by an increase in the number of visitors, Macau’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) revealed on Wednesday.
There were a total of 328 MICE events during the period, including 314 meetings and conferences, 10 exhibitions and four incentives, with over 250,000 visitors.
The meetings and conferences segment saw 30 less events than Q1 last year, with a significant decrease of 35 in those events with less than 100 participants. However, the number of attendees was up 31.5% to 71,000. The overall average floor area used for meetings and conferences expanded 104.2% to 551,000 square meters.
On the other hand, there were three more exhibitions than in 1Q17, with 193,000 visitors attending the events, up 18.2% year-on-year. Receipts and expenditure of the exhibitions totaled MOP$7.32 million and MOP$7.95 million respectively.
DSEC explained that exhibition receipts were driven by rental of booths (78%), followed by government and other organizations’ financial support (21.9%). Expenditure was led by advertising and public relations (34.1%) and production, construction and decoration (32.4%).
Attendees from Macau comprised the majority of attendees with 70.2% of the 349 exhibitors and 71.4% of the 8,208 professional visitors being locals.
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