Macao's meeting, exhibition events rise in Q1

MACAO, May 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of 97 meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition (MICE) events were held in Macao in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 29 year on year, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic service said on Thursday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the number of participants and attendees rose by 19.7 percent to 165,000.

A total of 76 meetings and conferences were held in the first quarter, up by 15 year on year. However, the number of participants decreased by 6.3 percent to 6,157. The average duration of the meetings, conferences and incentives went down by 0.1 day year on year to 0.9 day, said the report.

The number of exhibitions in the first quarter grew by seven year on year to 14, all of which were organized by non-government organizations. The number of attendees rose by 19.8 percent to 158,000.

The number of exhibitors soared by 64.8 percent year on year to 692 in the first quarter, and 96.1 percent of them were locals, showed the report. Professional visitors leapt by 63.2 percent to 9,153, with those from Macao accounting for 97.5 percent of the total.

In accordance with information collected from 368 interviewed exhibitors, 94.1 percent of their receipts were generated from sales of goods, whereas their expenditure was mainly incurred on rental paid for exhibition booths and booth installation and decoration.