The Macau Business Tourism Centre (MBTC) of the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), together with its Japan Representation Office, participated in the 20th International Meetings Expo (IME2010) held at the Tokyo International Forum on December 7-8 to showcase the exciting MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conference and Exhibition) developments of the recent Macau, as well as to work collaboratively with the Industry to build a stronger presence of Macau’s MICE products at similar events around the globe. Six hotel representatives from Macau joined MBTC to co-exhibit at the IME2010. The International Meetings Expo is the only major MICE tradeshow for meetings and incentive travel held in Japan once every year since 1990. The event is co-organized by the Ministry of Land Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan National Tourist Organization and Japan Congress and Convention Bureau, in hope of promoting MICE as one of the growing sector in Japan. Expecting 3,000 selected key organizers and planners will be participating in the IME2010, it is considered as an ideal networking platform for MBTC and suppliers from Macau to get in touch and create business relationships with the international MICE buyers and sellers. The Macau pavilion was the largest in terms of exhibition space out of 63 exhibiters in the trade show, drawing lots of potential event planners’ and organizers’ attention and requests for more information about having incentive tours in Macau. Mr. Fumihiro Sakakibara, General Manager of MGTO-Japan said during the trade show, “We have put great efforts in establishing the brand of Macau as a destination of World Heritage with multiple tourism products to the leisure market, and therefore we expect that the Japanese incentive tours to Macau will reach almost half of the total number of the tourists from Japan this year. We also believe that the MICE sector will become more important to Macau in the future. I understand that Macau still needs to reform and enhance the destination management; however, we believe that a variety of accommodations will further enable event organizers to choose Macau as a preferred MICE destination. Nevertheless, infinite capacity of accommodation will be one of the greatest charms of Macau.” He added, “The Macau pavilion was the most impressive pavilion among all the exhibitors in the IME. We do not only highlight the presence of Macau to the visitors but also the exhibitors. We believe such basic promotional activities will bring success in the near future”. Taking this opportunity, MGTO conducted two seminars on Macau’s MICE development on December 9 and 10 in Tokyo and in Osaka respectively. The seminars brought together 100 key agents in Japan, which were well received by the participants and their response to the program was very positive.
