TheHong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre 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 percent, compared with the previous year, no related trends could be discerned from the international conferences and exhibitions held at the HKCEC.

Monica Lee-Müller, Managing Director of Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management) Ltd (“HML”) that oversees the venue, 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.”

She added, “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.”

With just Art Basel in Hong Kong and Vinexpo Asia Pacific, the total visitor number jumped 9.4 percent.

The HML catering team designed and prepared specialty menus and set up a special vegetarian restaurant and a high-end seafood bar for the shows’ sophisticated exhibitors of visitors, according to HML officials.

The outlay on food and beverages in the HKCEC increased by 21.6 percent, compared with previous editions of these two events, they added.

“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,” Lee-Müller said.

She added,  “HKCEC’s exhibition space during the traditional peak trade fair seasons of April and October has already reached saturation point a few years ago.”

As a result, Lee-Müller said, HML now is offering venue rental discounts through the Low Season Scheme in six months of every year (February, May, June, July, August and December) to attract organizers 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,” she added, “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.”