Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that number of MICE events leapt by 114.4% (or 111) year-on-year to 208 in the first quarter of 2023, and the number of participants & attendees rose by 20.5% year-on-year to 199,000.
There were 196 meetings & conferences held in the first quarter, up by 120 year-on-year; number of participants surged by 258.1% to 22,000. The average duration of the meetings & conferences extended by 0.2 day year-on-year to 1.1 days, and the total floor area used expanded by 354.6% to 144,000 m². Number of exhibitions went down by 4 year-on-year to 10, all of which were organised by non-government organisations; meanwhile, number of attendees increased by 10.9% to 175,000. The average duration of the exhibitions held went up by 0.1 day year-on-year to 2.7 days, while the total floor area used dropped by 32.1% to 23,000 m². Besides, there were 2 incentives, with 2,299 participants. The average duration of these incentives was 2.5 days and the total floor area used was 9,904 m².
Receipts of the exhibition organisers fell by 11.9% year-on-year to MOP8.85 million, of which 88.1% were generated from rental of exhibition booths and the remaining 11.9% were financial support from government/organisations. Expenditure decreased by 26.2% to MOP6.49 million, with publicity & public relations and production, installation & decoration accounting for 38.1% and 34.4% of the total respectively. These exhibitions recorded net receipts of MOP2.36 million after deducting expenditure from receipts. When excluding financial support from government/organisations, net receipts totalled MOP1.30 million, which represented an increase compared to the same quarter last year.
In the first quarter, number of exhibitors decreased by 10.8% year-on-year to 617, and 93.4% of them were locals. Professional visitors dropped by 18.3% to 7,480, with those from Macao accounting for 89.0% of the total. Their main source of receipts was sales of goods (92.1% of total), whereas their expenditure was primarily incurred on rental paid for exhibition booths (71.1% of total) and booth installation & decoration (14.2%).
Regarding comments from the exhibitors, the share of exhibitors who were satisfied with the ease of access of the venue (82.6%) rose by 3.1 percentage points quarter-to-quarter, while the proportion of exhibitors who complimented on the hospitality (77.2%) and the promotion (69.7%) dropped by 6.7 percentage points and 6.3 percentage points.