A participant of Lisbon Travel Market (BTL, from the Portuguese abbreviation) since its first edition, Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) is once again promoting the city at the biggest Portuguese tourism fair with a 54 square-meter booth showcasing the binomial historical-cultural heritage/business tourism and the enormous tourism potential of Macau. BTL opened on January 13 and runs until 17. The Macau booth highlights the high quality of the growing supply existing in the city in the area of meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE). Currently, Macau has a number of state-of-the-art MICE infrastructures, including Asia’s largest hotel-convention and exhibition venue. Just to point out an example, on the first six months of 2009, 730 MICE events were held in the city, involving 211,287 participants, a 2,6 percent increase in the number of events organized compare to same period the previous year. A nine people delegation from Macau, headed by MGTO deputy director, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, is in Lisbon for the event. The delegation includes artists, namely a calligrapher and two fortune tellers, all already very well-known and most welcome by visitors, as the long lines around the Macau booth from the first to last minute of the trade show can prove. Visitors to the booth can also participate in a lucky draw by filling in a questionnaire about Macau. The prize is one weeklong trip to Macau for two people. The draw of the winner will be done at the booth on the January 17th around 17:00. In addition, this year a group of official entities and travel trade from Sichuan and the cities of Shenzhen and Zhongshan are participating at BTL, as well as being promoted at the Macau booth.
