Organised by the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO) and hosted by the Macau Business Tourism Centre (MBTC) of Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), the "IAPCO Regional Seminar on Professional Congress Organization" opened today (March 22) at the Venetian Macau~Resort~Hotel. The regional seminar is set to run from 22 to 24 March, with around 40 MICE industry professionals from Macau and other regions in Asia participating. This is the third consecutive year for the prestigious IAPCO Regional Seminar to be held in Macau. The seminar aims to provide an educational opportunity for people in the business tourism industry to further develop their customer service and event planning skills and features internationally renowned guest speakers who are experts in the congress industry. Director of MGTO, João Manuel Costa Antunes, said in his opening remarks that “According to the Macau SAR Government 2011 policy address, the Government will fully support the development of the convention and exhibition industry. For this purpose, the Convention Industry Development Committee was set up last March to coordinate the development of this sector.” He pointed out that the organization of this training seminar is part of the efforts of the Macau SAR Government to support the training and development of the business tourism industry in Macau, which is one of the most promising sectors in the city. Statistics show that for the whole year of 2010 the number of MICE events saw a year-on-year increase of 15 percent to a total of around 1,400, with the majority of the events being meetings and conferences. Last year's MICE events saw the average duration increasing to 2.5 days from 2.0 days in 2009, while the number of participants reached more than 800 thousand, up by 41 percent year-on-year. Antunes noted that “There is certainly a lot of potential for the future development of this sector. However, to attract and service this sector well, we need to constantly upgrade our software, besides hardware and infrastructure improvements.” He acknowledged IAPCO for their assistance in developing the professional know-how for the sector in the region. Participants in the regional seminar included professional congress organisers (PCOs), destination management companies (DMCs), convention and visitors bureaus, event management companies and other meetings industry representatives from Macau SAR, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan, China and each participant will receive a certificate of attendance from IAPCO & MGTO.
