Travel Industry Gears Up for Major MICE Events

In 2015, the 7.2 million Hong Kong citizens made in 2015 over 89 million departures, up 5.4 percent, which averaged 12.4 times per person, and outbound tours business of Hong Kong travel agents grew by 7.9 percent based on projection from levy collected.

Also, luxury outbound tours in last Christmas, Chinese New Year and coming Easter cost on average 6 percent to 7 percent more. In fact, Hong Kong spent US$22.1 billion on international travel in 2014, thus ranked Asia’s 4th largest and World’s 15th largest source market.

New official pavilions this year come from Andalucía of Spain, Sri Lanka and Slovakia, with new individual exhibitors from Asia, South Africa and Iceland etc. Repeating official pavilions like Finland, Switzerland, and Zagreb of Croatia and others will bring more co-exhibitors.

China (mainland) and Japan, each with around 60-70 booths, remain the two largest official pavilions, to be followed by those of Taiwan, Macau, South Korea and Hong Kong etc. In all present are around 80 tourism boards at levels from national to municipal from different parts of the world.

Overall, roughly 85 percent of all exhibitors are from abroad, while slightly less than half of the participating countries and regions are from outside Asia.

Sport – The magazine “Hong Kong Discovery” and the travel portal “Tripwant” join force bringing in more seminars, demos, displays, and experts for travelers and the serving travel trade.

MICE – The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) will host a pivotal seminar, titled, “The Myth of The Low Cost Carrier” to explore the latest trends in low cost carriers and to discuss the pros and cons of LCC usage by corporations.

Overseas Wedding – expert to share latest trend and opportunities, such as the consumer behavior of post 80 and 90, how travel agents to work with wedding planners for mutual benefits.

ITE & MICE this year is expected to draw some 12,000 buyers and trade visitors from travel and MICE industries with over a quarter from mainland China and abroad, and some 80,000 public visitors with high portion of them are FIT or affluent travelers.

By having two trade days requiring registration for admission and two public days mainly with FIT visitors, enables exhibitors connecting with both trade and public visitors, promotions and conducting channel sale and retail sale in one exhibition!

Organized by TKS Exhibition Services Ltd, ITE & MICE 2016 is supported by China National Tourism Administration, Hong Kong Tourism Board and Macao Government Tourism Office, etc. People working in Tourism / MICE related industries are invited to attend and pre-register online to apply for free admission on 16 – 17 Jun 2016.