The three-day 11th Macau International Travel (Industry) Expo (MITE) which ended yesterday and was held at the Venetian’s Cotai Expo Halls A and B, exceeded 30,000 visitors and 44 business contracts were signed, Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said yesterday.
Organised by MGTO annually, MITE aims to showcase the best of Macau’s tourism industry as the special administrative region (SAR) is striving to become a World Centre for Tourism and Leisure, according to the MITE website.
As the fair was about to end yesterday, Senna Fernandes told the media that “the overall performance of the event was better than expected.” Attendance had surpassed last year’s 30,000 by midday yesterday and sales reached at least 2.5 million patacas, including air tickets and travel packages, she said.
According to the MITE website, the expo was joined by 512 exhibitors and nearly 500 buyers, which resulted in the largest number of both exhibitors and buyers in its history.
Additionally, the “Cloud Live Broadcast”, which annually assists exhibitors in promoting their products in Macau and the mainland, received 213,600 views on the first day of the expo alone, according to a MGTO statement.
The 11th edition of the annual tourism expo was themed “MITE Connects the World,” which emphasised the aim of both the local government and local tourism sector to fully use Macau as a platform for business and trade cooperation Ricky Hoi Io Meng, MGTO Deputy Director said in his speech during MITE’s opening.
Committed to the government’s development strategy of appropriate economic diversification, the expo presented six major highlights that had the aim of deepening integration between tourism, leisure, and major industries including culture, sport, gastronomy, healthcare, e-commerce and technology, based on the government’s development model known as “1+4”, according to the website of The Venetian Macao.
With the gradually relaxed epidemic prevention policies in the Chinese mainland, the expo offered Macau the opportunity to welcome back overseas visitors and to redevelop its international tourism relations in the post-pandemic era, according to the MITE website. Among the 512 exhibitors, 69 were from outside the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, said The Venetian Macao website; tourism-related businesses had representatives from 39 countries and regions in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania at the expo.
Events such as MITE must be used to discuss in depth how to foster cooperation and development in the field of tourism after the pandemic, Hoi underlined.
Meanwhile, Senna Fernandes underlined that the average number of tourists visiting Macau last month was over 70,000 per day.
Fairgoers visit MITE at The Venetian Macao Expo Halls A&B yesterday. – Photo: Lily Xiao Linzhi
