Over the years, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) has served over 50,000 events and repeatedly been recognised as “Best Convention and Exhibition Venue in Asia”. Behind the scenes is the professional management company responsible for its day-to-day operation, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management) Limited (HML). The HML team prides itself on upholding the HKCEC’s global reputation, maintaining the HKCEC to world-class standards, and consistently delivering quality services for its 1,000 events and over 8 million attendees every year. These efforts have recently won HML the prestigious Grand Award of the 2023 HKMA Quality Award.
HML operates the HKCEC on commercial principles but with an eye on public interest, optimising the venue’s economic benefits for Hong Kong and maintaining its infrastructure and service advantages over its competitors. HML’s challenge is to find new ways of enhancing its already high standards and of expanding its exhibition portfolio, given space constraints and fierce regional competition.
Exhibitions, especially trade fairs, contribute significantly to Hong Kong. According to the 2018 Economic Impact Study of the Hong Kong Exhibition & Convention Industry Association, exhibitions contributed $58.6 billion to the local economy and created employment equivalent to 77,000 full-time jobs. Given these figures, one of HML’s major goals has been to nurture the HKCEC’s portfolio of recurrent trade exhibitions, which generate significant revenue, draw international business travellers and boost Hong Kong’s international status. HML’s aim is to keep its proportion of recurrent trade exhibitions at over one half of all exhibitions, and it has met this target consistently except during the pandemic. The impeccable customer services delivered by the HML team have been important drivers of high repeat booking rates.
Despite being heavily affected by COVID-19, HML’s determination to continue its HKCEC facility enhancement projects in the period is testimony to its long-term development commitment. At the same time, HML drove an industry task force that secured HK$1,020 million from the Government’s anti-epidemic Convention and Exhibition Industry Subsidy Scheme, and subsequently HK$1.4 billion from its Incentive Scheme for Recurrent Exhibitions. These efforts, together with HML’s long term partnership with exhibition organisers, have brought rapid returns. All the major recurrent trade fairs staged at the HKCEC before COVID are returning in 2023 or 2024, and overall, the HKCEC’s exhibition activities and business volumes are expected to return to pre-COVID levels in FY2024/25.
HML has also led the way in sustainability initiatives, becoming the first and only organisation in Hong Kong to have been awarded ISO20121 Event Sustainability Management System.
The HKMA Grand Award is just one is a series of quality awards won by HML over the years, including the recent 2023 Operations and Services Award from UFI – The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. Says HML Managing Director Ms Lee-Müller, “Quality is not something that can be switched on or off depending on circumstances. For HML, quality management is an ever-present commitment – to our customers, to ourselves, and to Hong Kong.”
