Hong Kong becoming more attractive destination for MICE

'MICE' arrivals up 10% to 725,779, 43% of which were arrivals from China.

Overnight MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) arrivals to Hong Kong reached 725,779 in the first six months of 2011, up 10.3% year on year, according to the Tourism Board.

Of all overnight MICE arrivals, 42.8%, or more than 310,000 arrivals, came from the Mainland, a 15% increase.

South and Southeast Asia, also with outstanding performance in the areas of corporate meetings and incentive travel, recorded an 11% increase in MICE arrivals.

Numerous large-scale conventions and exhibitions with record-breaking numbers of participants were held between January and June, helping to drive the growth of overall MICE arrivals.

The board's Executive Director Anthony Lau said: “We foresee 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, including the 2011 Asian Seafood Exposition and the SIGGRAPH Conference & Exhibition on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques in Asia, which are expected to draw several thousand participants.”