Hong Kong. Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management) Ltd (“HML”) announced, that the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (“HKCEC”) was the venue for 76 events in May, ranging from major international conferences, exhibitions and concerts to corporate annual dinners, wedding banquets and seminars which together drew a total of 428,000 visitors from all over the world. Even though Hong Kong’s provisional statistics of Hong Kong’s retail sales for April were reported to have dropped about 10% over the previous year, no related trends could be discerned from the international conferences and exhibitions held at the HKCEC. Throughout the month, everyday the HKCEC was utilised for hosting or move-in for one event or another and there was not a single idle day.
Monica Lee-Müller, Managing Director of HML, said, “The exhibitions and conferences in May covered such diverse themes as horse racing, trademarks, building technology, lighting and security, as well as art, antiques and wines. We had to hire additional manpower to the tune of 121,300 work-hours for our Chinese and Western kitchens, food and beverages services, as well as cleaning and maintenance teams, on top of HML’s 930 permanent full time staff, in order to uphold our service standards in the face of high-spending visitors.”
“Just considering Art Basel in Hong Kong and Vinexpo Asia Pacific, the total visitor number rose markedly by 9.4 percent. The high-spending visitors of these two exhibitions came from around the world. The HML catering team designed and prepared specialty menus and set up a special vegetarian restaurant and a high-end seafood bar for these sophisticated exhibitors of visitors. Their outlay on food and beverages in the HKCEC increased by 21.6 percent over previous editions of these two events. This again affirms that the convention and exhibition industries are the mainstay of Hong Kong’s business travel industry and underlines HKCEC’s leading role in bringing economic benefits to Hong Kong through its convention and exhibition events,” Ms Lee-Müller continued.
She pointed out, “HKCEC’s exhibition space during the traditional peak trade fair seasons of April and October has already reached saturation point a few years ago. HML is now offering venue rental discounts through the Low Season Scheme in six months of every year (February, May, June, July, August and December) to attract organisers in running events during non-peak seasons. The fact that May schedules in recent years have consistently been full testifies the success of our strategy. Now we are able to make full use of non-peak season schedules and can also bring a host of diversified international events into Hong Kong and the HKCEC. The exciting and dynamic events this May are precisely the results of the efforts of the entire HML team.”
The HKCEC saw an exciting range of events in May, including the 35th Asian Racing Conference (5-8 May), Concert organised by Metro Broadcast (5 May), 903id club Music Is Life Concert 2014 (6 May), The Building Technology, Electrical Engineering and Security Show (7-9 May), The 136th International Trademark Association Annual Meeting (10-14 May), Art Basel in Hong Kong (15-18 May), Christie’s Hong Kong Spring Auctions 2014 (23-28 May), International Antiques Fair (24-26 May) and Vinexpo Asia-Pacific (27-29 May).
