In the latest International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Annual Statistics and Rankings report, Macao SAR sees a record number of international meetings in the last decade.
Macao went 21 places up in the global city rankings and up three spots in the Asia Pacific rankings. In its 2016 report, Macao was acknowledged for hosting 37 international association meetings, which met ICCA’s strict criteria for association meetings that rotate among at least three countries. In the previous year, Macao played host to 27 such meetings.
This achievement has been attributed to the effort put in by the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), and their close business relationships with suppliers in the meetings industry, government agencies and Macao’s local associations, according to Irene Va Kuan Lau (Executive Director of IPIM).
An estimated total of 25,895 association participants attended conventions last year, boosted by four association events which saw an average of more than 3,000 pax. These included the 11th Worldwide Chinese Life Insurance Congress – WCLIC; ACM Siggraph Asia 2016; 17th International Dragon Award Annual Meeting – IDA; and the 8th World Assembly of Zhuang Yan Clan.
“Although Macao is a favourite among meeting organisers of big conventions because of our integrated meetings infrastructure, we also work hard to welcome smaller association conventions as these have the power to transform and boost our knowledge and creativity economy. These smaller academic, scientific, trade or professional meetings take place in our institutions of higher learning – the University of Macau, the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), and the Macao Polytechnic Institute – and also at the Macao Science Centre and at our wide range of hotels,” said Lau.
Almost 73 percent of these international meetings are those on an Asian region rotation, signifying that Macao’s biggest conventions market is in its backyard. Conventions which are on a world rotation took 10.8 percent of the share.
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