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MGM’s Visionary Cultural Tourism Program “Lion IP” won PATA Grand & Gold Awards

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September 11, 2023

MGM’s international brand engagement program “Lion IP” has been honored by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Awards 2023, with the top honor the “Grand Title” in Marketing and the “Gold Award” in Heritage. Both awards recognize MGM’s visionary marketing strategies on “Lion IP”, which center on Chinese Lingnan culture to create a series of distinctive and original cultural tourism programs, accomplishing a vivid cultural symbol of Macau that “Where there are Chinese, there are lion dances”. Lion IP has broken new ground in the integration of culture and tourism, and developed an extended impact that propels innovations in preserving Macau’s culture and elevates Macau’s international status as a diverse cultural and tourism destination. To date, “Lion IP” has reached over one billion people worldwide.

The PATA Gold Awards is an annual prestigious event for the global tourism industry that honors industry standout achievements. This year marks the second time MGM received the top prize at the Award, following its grand achievement in 2020 when the Company became Macau’s first integrated tourism enterprise to receive the highest accolade.

Pansy Ho, Chairperson & Executive Director of MGM China Holdings Limited, said, “MGM has been a pioneer of cultural tourism. Leveraging our market insights and capabilities, we have incorporated Lingnan culture into our tourism product development and ushered in ‘Lion IP’ as an international cultural tourism brand that reinvigorates the image of Macau. We harnessed the power of originality and technology to create a wide range of events including sports contests, art exhibitions, high-tech theatrical performances. Our offerings feature the crossover of the Chinese cultures and business forces, that the traditions can be preserved and nurtured through modern ways. The Lion IP has been well-received globally and further consolidated Macau as a cultural tourism destination.”

One Cultural Root Extended into International Cultural Touchpoints

“Lion IP” was founded in 2010, with the inaugural “MGM Lion Dance Championship” as the starting point. Over a decade, Lion IP has stood as a high-end cultural tourism brand that takes cultural aspiration, innovation and craftmanship as core values, seamlessly merging MGM’s lion symbol and Lingnan traditional Lion Dance culture. Through originality and technology, it fosters local sustainable development by forging a wealth of “Tourism +” offerings – these experiences span across various industries, effectively promoting Chinese culture at a profound scale.

“MGM Lion Dance Championship” is the flagship program of Lion IP. Since its establishment in 2010, it has become a prominent lion dance competition, with last year’s contest drawing over 4 million viewers both online and offline. To better promote lion dance, MGM also launched the “MGM Junior Lion Dance Training Program” in 2015, which has nurtured 544 young masters in Macau so far.

In 2021, MGM presented the special art exhibition “Awakening”, which embraced lion as an emblematic theme and brought together renowned Chinese artists from around the world to jointly create a world-class contemporary art event in Macau. In the same year, the Company joined hands with Guangzhou Song and Dance Theatre to present the techno-cultural Dance Drama “MGM Awakening Lion” at the MGM Theater.

Early this year, MGM collaborated with Zhou Yi, master of fondant art, also known as the “King of Sugar” in China, to jointly present the “Fondant Art Exhibition”. The fondant art sculptures, reinterpreting Chinese festive and cultural norms in a modern way, provide a new lens for young generations to better understand Lingnan culture.

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