Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that number of MICE events held in the first quarter of 2019 increased by 49 year-on-year to 377 (including 362 meetings & conferences, 10 exhibitions and 5 incentives). Total number of participants and attendees rose by 19.9% to 333,000.
Number of meetings & conferences held in the first quarter increased by 48 year-on-year, and number of participants grew by 18.1% to 84,000. Among the meetings & conferences, those with a duration of 4 hours or more totalled 263, with 74,000 participants, up by 13.3%. The average duration of the meetings & conferences remained unchanged year-on-year at 1.5 days, whereas total floor area used declined by 52.4% to 280,000 m2.
Number of exhibitions in the first quarter remained the same as a year earlier, with number of attendees rising by 22.1% to 235,000. Exhibitions organised by non-government organisations went down by 1 to 9, while number of attendees rose by 17.3% to 226,000. The average duration of the exhibitions held steady year-on-year at 3.6 days, and total floor area used was 31,000 m2, a surge of 31.8%. Number of incentives went up by 1, whereas number of participants (13,000) and total floor area used (114,000 m2) dropped by 2.9% and 9.7% respectively. The average duration of these incentives was 2.9 days, up by 0.3 day.
According to the information provided by the 10 exhibition organisers in the first quarter, their receipts and expenditure amounted to MOP 9.42 million and MOP 34.10 million respectively. The 9 exhibitions organised by non-government organisations recorded MOP 8.71 million in receipts, an increase of 19.0% year-on-year. Of the receipts, 82.5% were generated from rental of exhibition booths (MOP 7.18 million); besides, 17.5% came from financial support from the government and other organisations (MOP 1.52 million), representing a decrease of 4.4 percentage points year-on-year. Expenditure of these exhibitions totalled MOP 7.76 million, of which 33.0% was incurred on publicity & public relations (MOP 2.56 million) and 31.2% on production, construction & decoration (MOP 2.42 million). After deducting the expenditure from the receipts, the exhibitions held by non-government organisations showed net receipts of MOP 0.94 million in the first quarter. In order to analyse the marketisation of the exhibition industry, financial support from the government and other organisations were excluded from the net receipts and a negative value of MOP 0.58 million was registered in the first quarter of 2019, yet, it was an improvement as compared to the negative amount of MOP 2.23 million in the same quarter of 2018.
In the first quarter of 2019, there were 975 exhibitors participating in the exhibitions, with 41.8% of them coming from Macao. Professional visitors totalled 3,975; 43.9% of them came from Mainland China and 40.4% were local visitors. Information from the 558 interviewed exhibitors in the first quarter indicated that 92.9% of their receipts were generated from sales of products, while the majority (59.1%) of their expenditure was incurred on rental paid for exhibition booths. Regarding comments from the interviewed exhibitors, among those who had used services rendered by local companies, the proportions of exhibitors who were satisfied with the services (85.0%) and the arrangements of the local companies (84.3%) dropped by 0.3 percentage points and 1.0 percentage point respectively quarter-to-quarter; meanwhile, the share of those who complimented on the promotion of the exhibition (66.7%) increased by 7.1 percentage points.