Sunday, August 07, 2011

Hong Kong MICE arrivals up 10% in 1H

News this week: The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) announced that Hong Kong’s overnight MICE arrivals increased by 10% year-on-year to 725,779 in the first six months of 2011. According to HKTB, the growth of MICE arrivals can be attributed to record-breaking numbers of participants at large-scale conventions and exhibition during the period.

Of those 725,779 arrivals, 43% or 310,913 were from mainland China, which grew 15% year-on-year. South and south-east Asia arrivals also recorded significant growth, rising 11% to 116,788. European, African and the Middle Eastern arrivals were 90,802 in the period, while the Australia-Pacific region posted the fastest growth – up 18% in the first half of the year.

HKTB executive director Anthony Lau was quoted, “We foresee that overnight MICE arrivals will continue to grow in the second half of this year. One of the factors to foster this upward trend is the staging of some large-scale conventions and exhibitions… In addition, sustained growth of the Mainland economy and exchange rates favourable to major currencies against the Hong Kong dollar are going to bring more meetings and incentive travel activities to Hong Kong, especially from the Mainland and other short-haul markets.”

This post is excerpted from BSG's weekly e-newsletter which is part of our subscription research service, BSG Tracker. Visit our website to find out more about this service. You can also follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

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