Thoughts on Macau

I was over in Macau on Saturday to assist in judging the final assessment of a training programme for lecturers who will be training the next generation of MICE industry specialists in the booming SAR. This focus from tiny Macau's government - there are only 500,000 people there - is another little indication of just how serious they are about launching themselves onto the world's business events stage.

The meeting was in a training institute on Taipa Island over which now looms the vast bulk of the almost completed Venetian. The scale of the vision is becoming clear for all to see.

Although the Hong Kong property market has been doing pretty well of late, the massive expansion of business in Macau has meant that the market has been taking off like a rocket over several years. It was no surprise then to see as I was poking around on the web this morning that the exhibition people from Munich have moved their ExpoReal Asia event from Shanghai to Macau. It seems to me the type of show that will be well-suited to the Venetian and that the deep-pocketed investors from the rest of China will be even happier to come to Macau than they are to be in Shanghai.