Students get MICE industry hands-on job experience

Gene Capuano

A group of Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) students will have a unique opportunity to gain practical experience tomorrow as they develop and organize an entire exhibition featuring the work of local artists at The Venetian Macao.
The group is being assisted by professor Gene Capuano, Sands China’s Vice President of Convention & Exhibition Operations, who has been giving MICE-related lectures and an Event Preparations course, at IFT,.
“This is the second 30-hour course that I have taught there. The structure of it is to really allow the students to create a conceptual idea of an event. So from start to finish it really gives them the opportunity to see what it’s like as an organizer and also from the hotel side, what it’s like to organize an event,” he said in an interview with the Times.
Mr Capuano stressed that by allowing students to organize an event by themselves, “it’s a good rounded way to expose them to the MICE industry and really get them to understand if it’s something that they’re interested in or not.”
The group of 23 students who are organizing the event has invited 30 local artists to display their artwork tomorrow in a total of 30 booths. Local musicians will be performing and there will also be workshops for kids.
Last year, IFT students were afforded a similar opportunity, organizing a gala-type event.
The exhibition will run from noon until 8 p.m. at Expo Hall D of the Venetian. IFT president Fanny Vong will be attending the opening ceremony.
Mr Capuano believes that by obtaining hands-on job experience, students will have a clearer idea of their preferred career path.
“When you talk about events and exhibitions you only think about the operational part, but when students start to see that they can design, market the event to individual businesses, and learn how to use social media… they see the different areas of the hotel industry that they can work in first hand,” he reiterated.
Furthermore, the experience will help them understand that “you really have to start from the bottom and work your way up.”
“You can’t just walk out of school with a degree and then expect to become a manager and all of a sudden deal with challenges in a 3,000-room hotel,” he noted.
Students will also be looking at sustainability in relation to the event, as Sands China’s green initiatives are also extended to MICE events.
A team within the convention and exhibition operations department is in charge of “green meetings”, and staff may be assigned to help organizers develop a sustainable event, by saving water or utilizing water bottles.
“The students will also understand what happens with the materials used. We have an impact assessment. And they will get to see how things get re-used,” Mr Capuano explained.
The number of MICE-sector events in this year’s first quarter reached 200, down by 9 percent year-on-year, according to data released last month by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
But from Sands China’s perspective, the number of attendees has been increasing throughout the first quarter.
Mr Capuano said that although there has been a decrease in the overall number of MICE events, more people have been in attendance.
He recalled that the company has been in a good position, since it has built large spaces for MICE events, which will expand once the Parisian opens.
As Macau wishes to expose itself to more international events, general attendance will increase even though there will be fewer events, he said.
Mr Capuano says Macau has a few advantages over, for instance, Hong Kong in terms of expanding its MICE business.
He stressed that, “Macau is more convenient because the amount of rooms that you have in a condensed area is much more compared to when you go to Hong Kong. So from an organizer’s perspective if I want do an event for 2,000 or 3,000 people in Hong Kong, that will probably take seven or eight hotels plus a convention center.”

Airport expansion would be ‘a game changer’

Gene Capuano, says that current infrastructure under development in Macau will help boost the MICE industry. But the real game-changer would be the expansion of Macau’s airport.
“The game-changer in Macau from my opinion is the airport expansion, and getting more international flights directly into Macau,” he said.
Mr Capuano recalled that an airport expansion would allow more people to visit Macau for MICE events, improving access to hotels in Macau when combined with a short taxi or shuttle bus ride.
He concluded by saying that, “it’s a big convenience for international business travellers. So as long as the infrastructure continues to grow I think that we will see over time that the MICE business will continue to grow as well.”
Mr Capuano recalled that infrastructural developments like the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge or the LRT will diffuse congestion at the ferry terminal and on Macau’s streets. “Those infrastructural things are going to help the industry quite a bit.”