HKTB Drives Strong MICE Rebound

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International
HKTB Drives Strong MICE Rebound

8/2/2024
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) reports a strong rebound for Meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) tourism in the first half of 2024.

Hong Kong received about 21 million visitors between January and June this year, about half of them stayed overnight. Among overnight visitors, MICE arrivals accounted for 700,000 visitors, which has recovered to about 80% of the level recorded in the same period of 2018, making MICE the fastest recovering visitor segment in Hong Kong.

The MICE sector serves to attract high-yield visitors to the city on top of enhancing Hong Kong’s international image as the world’s meeting place. Each overnight MICE visitor spent an average of HK$8,000 in town, which was about 20–30% higher than the average per-capita spending of all inbound travellers.

In 2023, MICE visitors were longer stayers, staying 3.7 nights on average, compared to the average of 3.2 nights for all overnight visitors. MICE tourism helped attract more international tourists too, evident by the fact that half of the overnight MICE visitors came from international markets, compared to 25% of all overnight visitors.

Over 60 world congresses, region’s first trade shows and mega meetings, bringing in more than 180,000 inbound visitors

The impetus to grow the MICE sector is sustained. The HKTB has facilitated public and private sector bids for regional and international events, and helped secure over 60 large-scale international MICE events for Hong Kong slated for between 2024 and 2026, many of these are first time events for Hong Kong. The line-up of events is expected to attract more than 180,000 Mainland and international visitors.

The events span a wide range of themes and industries. On top of sectors where Hong Kong boasts unique strengths, such as innovation and technology (I&T), medical sciences and financial services, new themes of other sectors such as aviation, architecture, education are also trending among the latest event wins.

Notable wins include the triumphant return of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 after the last conference held in Hong Kong back in year 2013; and a number of the region’s first conventions and exhibitions across different sectors, including SmartCon 2024 and Consensus Hong Kong 2025 of the I&T sector; and Super Terminal Expo 2024, Routes World 2025 and Airspace Asia Pacific 2025 & 2027 of the aviation sector. Prominent first-ever world congresses to be held in Hong Kong for the first time include World Cancer Congress 2026 and International Federation of Landscape Architects World Congress 2026.

These significant event wins not only solidify Hong Kong’s status as the world’s meeting place but also strengthen the city’s leading status across these industry sectors.

Five strategies to step up promotion of MICE tourism

To maintain the growth momentum, the HKTB will continue to:

Make every effort to secure and bid for major international MICE events to be held in Hong Kong;
offer various funding schemes to support events of different scale and types, benefitting the trade, travel agents, hotels and more;
continue the proven targeted multi-pronged approach to boost MICE tourism growth through tailored programmes including the “Hong Kong Incentive Playbook” and the “Hong Kong Convention Ambassadors” programme;
enhance tourist’ in-town experiences by arranging value added activities, from sightseeing tours to complimentary tickets to museums etc.., to showcase Hong Kong’s tourism appeal on top of business fundamentals;
play up Hong Kong’s unique advantages, especially as a “super-connector” for connecting international businesses with Mainland markets, in bids and publicity and promotions, highlighting the city’s hardware advantages such as world-class venue facilities, and well-connected transport infrastructure.