Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUN 2023年6月 亞博匯 38 COVER STORY AWS: You’ve recently made a large investment in MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) with the new Galaxy International Convention Center. There has been a perception that Macau has some infrastructure issues around MICE compared with regional players like Singapore and Hong Kong. How can Macau compete with those much larger cities, and how do you think MICE will play out in Macau over the next 10 years? FL: You need the infrastructure to bring in a lot of people in a very compressed timeframe. I think we really need to think about cooperation here, because I don’t think Macau should be looking to dominate the market where we take customers from Hong Kong or Shenzhen. Maybe we can cooperate so we can share that customer. For example, Hong Kong has one of the best airports in the world right now and we could utilize that much better. Hong Kong has a lot of industries we don’t have in Macau, like the financial industry, so to get more MICE business into Macau, I feel we should cooperate. I do see a lot of synergy between Hong Kong and Macau in doing the convention business better. Honestly, I don’t think Macau by itself can attract some industries to have a conventional exhibition in Macau alone. But if we look at multiple venues, people would be able to stay a few days in Hong Kong and then come to Macau for the last part to finish off. We still have a lot to