Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that a total of 328 MICE events were held in the first quarter of 2018, including 314 meetings & conferences, 10 exhibitions and 4 incentives. Total number of participants and attendees was 278,000.

Number of meetings & conferences held in the first quarter decreased by 30 year-on-year, as meetings & conferences with less than 100 participants went down by 35. Meanwhile, number of participants increased by 31.5% to 71,000, with those attending meetings & conferences with 200 participants or more (59,000) rising by 46.3%. Meetings & conferences of 4 hours or more totalled 224, down by 23 year-on-year, while number of participants expanded by 48.1% to 65,000. The overall average duration of the meetings & conferences was 1.5 days, down slightly by 0.2 day year-on-year; total floor area used surged by 104.2% to 551,000 m².

All the exhibitions held in the first quarter were organised by non-government organisations, an increase of 3 year-on-year, and number of attendees rose by 18.2% to 193,000. The average duration of the exhibitions was 3.6 days, up by 0.6 day year-on-year; total floor area used expanded by 65.3% to 23,000 m². Number of incentives decreased by 11 year-on-year to 4, while number of participants soared by 205.3% to 14,000. The average duration of the incentives dropped by 0.7 day year-on-year to 2.6 days; total floor area used jumped by 704.7% to 127,000 m².

According to the information provided by the exhibition organisers, receipts and expenditure of the 10 exhibitions amounted to MOP 7.32 million and MOP 7.95 million respectively. The receipts were primarily generated from rental of exhibition booths (78.0% of total), followed by financial support provided by the government and other organisations (21.9%). Expenditure was mainly incurred on publicity & public relations (34.1% of total) and production, construction & decoration (32.4%). The exhibitions in the first quarter attracted 349 exhibitors, with those coming from Macao accounting for 70.2%. Professional visitors totalled 8,208, and 71.4% of them were from Macao. By deducting the expenditure from the receipts, the exhibitions recorded a deficit of MOP 0.63 million in the first quarter, which is bigger than the deficit (MOP 0.12 million) in the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, in order to analyse the marketisation of the exhibition industry, after the financial support from the government and other organisations (MOP 1.60 million) as well as expenditure of the exhibitions were deducted from the receipts, a deficit of MOP 2.23 million was registered, higher than the MOP 1.26 million deficit in the same quarter of 2017.

Information from 260 interviewed exhibitors in the first quarter indicated that 96.4% of their receipts were generated from sales of products, while rental paid for exhibition booths accounted for 62.3% of their expenditure. Regarding comments from the interviewed exhibitors, the proportion of those who were satisfied with the arrangements of local companies (79.9%) was relatively high, up by 2.1 percentage points quarter-to-quarter, whereas the share of those who were satisfied with the services of the companies (76.0%) went down by 1.8 percentage points. The proportions of interviewed exhibitors who complimented on the language skills (77.1%), professionalism (74.5%) and work efficiency & attitude (74.4%) of venue staff dropped by 1.8 percentage points, 3.9 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points respectively quarter-to-quarter. The share of those who were satisfied with the promotion of the exhibition (60.2%) was the lowest among all rated aspects, despite an increase of 4.9 percentage points quarter-to-quarter.