Macao earned the title “Best BT-MICE City” for the second year in a row during the 33rd TTG Travel Awards 2024 ceremony and gala dinner, which was held in Bangkok yesterday.
According to the Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute (known by its Portuguese initials IPIM), the prize marks the second time in a single month that Macao has been recognised for its achievements as a destination for business trips (BT), as well as meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE).
Earlier this month, the SAR received the Best Convention City (Asia) Award for a second straight year at the M&C Asia Stellar Awards ceremony.
The TTG Travel Awards have been handed out annually by its organiser TTG Asia Media since 1989, with prizes across a range of categories relating to airlines, hotels, travel services, resorts and BT-MICE. The event is billed as “Asia-Pacific’s most prestigious travel industry awards.”
[See more: Macao retains its crown as Asia’s best convention city]
Back in April, Macao was also the recipient of the Best City in China for Leisure Travel award, a separate prize organised by a Chinese-language offshoot of TTG Asia.
In recent years, the Macao government has been working with the SAR’s six casino operators and authorities in Hengqin to boost the local MICE industry, as part of a wider effort to diversify the local economy away from gambling.
Figures show that there were 702 MICE events in Macao in the first half of this year, a jump of more than 42 percent in comparison to the 209 events during the corresponding period in pre-pandemic 2019.
The industry has meanwhile been able to increase its non-gambling revenue by 30 percent year-on-year, to a total of 2.47 billion patacas.
