MACAU BUSINESS
reopened for events in April it did so gradually, first for groups of 300, then 500, 800, and then 1,000. It was incremental but there was a clear direction by the government that we will not flick backward unless truly necessary,” Chua pointed out. Meanwhile, Professor Glenn McCartney highlighted that
current quarantine-on-arrival measures would have to be removed for the MICE industry to be “relaunched and rejuvenated”. “We’ve had the travel corridor with mainland China for
two years and we can build the MICE industry through that for now […] once we can remove the restrictions the recovery can be catapulted. Then the question will we be ready to go when the doors come down,” the UM researcher added. Recently the Macao Association of Convention, Exhibition
and Tourism Sectors President, Ho Hoi Meng, previously revealed that the SAR would host as many as 600 exhibitions next year to compensate for a loss of MICE events caused by the COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year According to data provided by the Statistics and Census
Bureau, some 449 conventions and exhibitions were organized in Macau in 2021 attracting 1.4 million participants, representing a decrease of 70 per cent and 90 per cent, respectively, compared to 2019. The number of events in the SAR has improved in the first
quarter of this year by about a third, with a total of 97 MICE events held in Macau, helping the number of participants and attendees rise by 20 per cent to 165,000. In the view of event businessman Todd Cai, prior to the pandemic, Macau was an extremely “promising” destination for MICE, which still provides some confidence in its future, however, he underlined that the main challenge remained the timeline for any changes to the current movement restriction policies. “Our main client now is mainland China and the
government wants to turn to the international market, but first we need to solve the problem of visa requirements and COVID-19. We have a good policy involving Hengqin but we need to study the best way to integrate into ‘one-city’ that would be more attractive for event planners around the world,” Cai added. President of the Macau Meetings, Incentives and Special
Events Association Bruno Simões also reiterated that the “door is only slightly open to mainland China” with package group visas still to be resumed and chose to aim at what the sector would do to prepare itself for when MICE events get back on track. In an effort to revitalize the city’s tourism industry and economy, Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng announced that package tours from mainland China will resume in November, and electronic visas will be re-issued between late October and early November, in an effort to revitalize the city’s tourism industry and economy. The package tour arrangement will include visitors from Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu Zhejiang, and Shanghai, places with higher consumption ability, the Chief Executive noted, and the new measures are aimed at doubling the city’s daily visitor tally to 40,000 from the current 20,000 figure.
Todd Cai “All over the world people have left the [MICE], hotel, and
travel agency industries. Our major challenge now is to attract these people back because the more competent employees left for other areas, or even left the city in the case of Macau
[…] You can’t do MICE without good professionals, not just meeting planners, but photographers, designers, etc.” Simões pointed out. “In many cases there is business but we can’t deliver we
have to eject business because we can’t do it. The team or suppliers we had around us is not there […] Macau needs to
DECEMBER 2022 17 Florence Chua Bruno Simoes
Glenn Mccartney
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