[photopress:Beijing_inte_rnationalconve.jpg,full,alignright]Beijing will renovate and erect more conference and exhibition halls in the next five years. This will bring in the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) and consequently push up the earnings of hotels.
To be completed by 2010 are a 30,000-square-meter conference center in the Olympic Park in north Beijing, a 200,000-square-meter exhibition hall in Shunyi and another 100,000-square-meter exhibition hall in the city’s east.
The plan said Beijing hopes to host more international conferences and exhibitions in the next five years. The bureau said they expected a direct annual income of RMB15.1 to 22.6 billion yuan ($1.9 to 2.8 billion) from conferences and exhibitions by 2010. That is direct income. Indirect income for the hotels will compound those figures.
Last year Beijing hosted 174,000 conferences and 2,367 exhibitions with a direct income of RMB6.1 billion (about $762.5 million), up 20.3 percent year-on-year.
Source: Xinhua