Macao's conference, exhibition industry sees mixed performance in 2019

Source: Xinhua | 2020-03-11

The number of meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition (MICE) events held in Macao increased in 2019 but the participants dropped, the special administrative region's statistic service said on Tuesday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that a total of 1,536 MICE events were held in 2019, an increase of 109 year-on-year, with 1,459 meetings and conferences, 58 exhibitions and 19 incentives. The number of participants and attendees totaled 2.00 million, a drop of 5.4 percent.

The number of participants in meetings and conferences dropped by 1.4 percent year-on-year to 292,000, due to a notable decline in participants in the second quarter of 2019. Total floor area used for the meetings and conferences decreased by 29.8 percent to 1.19 million square meters, the average duration rose by 0.1 day to 1.5 days.

The DSEC report added that the number of exhibition attendees dropped by 4.3 percent year-on-year to 1.69 million. The exhibitions occupied a total floor area of 370,000 square meters, a growth of 6.4 percent, while their average duration remained the same as in 2018 at 3.4 days.

The number of participants in incentives totaled 22,000 and total floor area used was 151,000 square meters, representing a sizable reduction of 60.2 percent and 61.2 percent respectively year-on-year. The average duration of the incentives grew by 0.4 day to 3.0 days.