Macau’s MICE industry showed signs of life in the three months to 31 December 2021, with the number of MICE events rising by 13 year-on-year and 92 quarter-on-quarter to 163 events, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
The number of participants was also 39.5% higher year-on-year and 218.1% higher than in 3Q21 at 719,000.
Of the 163 total MICE events, 140 were meetings and conferences, 20 were exhibitions and three were incentives – all up on the same time last year. However, the figure remained well below the final quarter of 2019 when Macau hosted 461 MICE events comprising 432 meetings and conferences, 21 exhibitions and eight incentives.
DSEC said there was also one additional exhibition organized by non-government organizations in the December quarter at 14, with the number of attendees up 21.4% to 461,000.
Of the 2,515 exhibitors who participated in exhibitions in Q4, 48.3% were locals and another 42.8% from mainland China, DSEC explained.
However, exhibition organizers recorded negative value with receipts of MOP$49.85 million (US$6.2 million) well below total expenditure of MOP$121 million (US$15.1 million).
Receipts of the 14 exhibitions held by non-government organizations totalled MOP$45.71 million (US$5.7 million), of which 47.1% was via government financial support. Without this support, the difference between receipts and expenditure was a loss of MOP$23.91 million (US$3.0 million).
For all of 2021 there were a total of 449 MICE events in Macau, up from 381 in 2020 but well below the 1,536 events held in 2019. There were also 47 exhibitions held by non-government organizations with receipts falling MOP$30.24 billion (US$3.8 million) short of expenditure.
