Macau is likely to receive circa “170,000 professional visitors” from collectively, “mainland China, Portuguese-speaking countries and southeast Asian nations” for various conferences and exhibitions held in the city during the second half of 2023.
That is according to a press release published on Sunday by the Office of the Secretary for Economy and Finance. It did not mention any tally for such visitors for the city’s meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sector in the first half.
It did say that for full-year 2023, Macau was due to host in aggregate “over 1,000 conventions and exhibitions”. The second half was expected to be a “peak period” for such trade.
The Secretary’s office said the city’s government had been working to support an increase of inbound tourism, including via the MICE trade, to “revive” the local economy.
Macau only eased most of its Covid-19 -related travel restrictions in early January, at the same time as mainland China eased its rules.
Macau had 208 MICE events in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest available data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service. That tally was 44.8-percent lower when compared to a total of 377 MICE events held in the first quarter of 2019 – a pre-pandemic trading period – the census office data show.
The city’s inward-investment agency, the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute, said earlier this month that it had set up a working group with representatives from the six casino operators as well as five local trade associations covering the conference and exhibition business, with the aim of drawing more “international and regional”-level events to the city.
