ITE & MICE, Hong Kong’s only international travel fair held each year in June, last drew 2588 buyers and trade visitors MICE & Corporate Travel and 6522 from travel agents; and in all a total of 12000 buyers and trade visitors in the two trade days, with 74% from Hong Kong and 19% from China particularly Guangdong!
Its next edition, ITE & MICE 2015, which co-locates the 29th ITE (leisure) and the 10th ITE MICE, will next be held from June 11 to 14, 2015 at halls 1A to 1E of the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Again, its first two days open only to trade with the second trade day designated MICE / Corporate Travel Day, and last two days to public.
An online survey held last Jun by TKS, organizer of ITE & MICE, found the MICE and corporate visitors frequent business travelers, with 31% made two to four business trips and another 17% five times or more in past year.
They seek in the travel fair information and suppliers of destination (83%), accommodation and hotel (52%), travel agents / DMC (44%), and Tourism Boards / Convention Bureau (38%). The findings thus support co-location of leisure and MICE travels resulting in great synergy! In fact, MICE trips often include significant leisure elements, and official pavilions by tourism board often include both leisure and MICE co-exhibitors.
The combined ITE & MICE, which features nearly 700 international exhibitors (85% from abroad) from around 50 countries and regions all over the world, is bigger in scale thus offering more destinations, products and suppliers, which no doubt better attract visitors!
Trade Days Activities
In trade days of ITE & MICE are Business Matching and around 20 seminars, some of which by the organizer in co-operation with trade associations such as the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) on “Corporate Travel”, and the Wedding Management Association on “Overseas Wedding” etc.
Exhibitors can also rent purposely built seminar rooms located inside the exhibition halls to hold their own presentations or seminars, which the organizer will help promoting, say, by sending invitations for online pre-registration.
ITE MICE is supported by trade associations and MICE industry associations in the region, and several chambers of commerce / professional bodies help distributing invitations to members.
Highlighting Travel Themes
Trendy travel themes, which often are closely associated with up-market and/or in-depth travels, are highlighted in ITE & MICE. While MICE traditionally involve corporations, theme travel by public such as those private tour groups for Overseas Wedding is organizationally similar to MICE.
In fact, survey held in last June found theme travels are popular with both trade and public visitors.
Table 1: Themes popularity among Trade & Public Visitors
THEMES HOW Wellness & Medical Sport Cruise Travel Photography
Trade Visitors 24% 14% 22% 29% 21%
Public Visitors 14% 12% 30% 34% 54%
There are trade and public seminars, demos and info stand on specific travel theme.
Travel Fair gathers 60,000 Frequent Independent Travellers (FIT)
Reflecting a worldwide trend that frequent independent traveller (FIT), especially among the affluent and the enthusiast, now contribute more travel business, survey in last June found 83% of the 75000 public visitors of ITE & MICE prefer travelling in FIT / private groups. That over 45% of them had university education underlines their high quality.
They were found to be travel enthusiasts – 59% travelled two to four times and 19% five times or more in past year. Nearly 25% of them had country in Europe, Americas, Africa or Oceania etc as destination of their longest holiday in past year. This percentage under-estimates the actual visit frequencies as those been to Europe twice would have only been counted once.
Last year, there were nearly 100 travel seminars in the public days and the most popular ones drew over 200 audiences, great offers from exhibitors as 20% of the 75000 public visitors interested in onsite purchases, round the clock cultural performances and the Grand Lucky Draw,
Organized by TKS Exhibition Services Ltd, ITE & MICE is supported by China National Tourism Administration, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, Macau Government Tourist Office, trade associations of travel agents and event industries from Hong Kong and in the region. Prestigious chambers of commerce and professional bodies also help distributing invitations to their members.
For more details of the Expo for exhibiting and / or trade visitor registration, please visit trade website of www.itehk.com. For exhibiting or general enquiry, please email to travel@tkshk.com
