Xiamen has hosted a total of 967 exhibition and 24,301 business meetings and conferences from 2013 to 2017, respectively up 84.54% and 183.96% than the total of previous five years. The city has successfully held the BRICS Summit, the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting and other high-end international meetings and congresses, mega-conferences, as well as a series of large-scale professional trade exhibitions such as China International Fair for Investment & Trade, Xiamen Industry Expo and etc. It has formed the unique MICE development model and the ecosystem of the industry chain sustained by commerce, finance, high technology and cultural creativity, etc.

In 2018, the citys exhibition industry showed a prosperous trend of "increased quantity, improved quality and advanced efficiency", with a total of 229 exhibitions, up 11.71% year on year. The total exhibition area was 2,378,300 square meters, up 8.6% year on year; a total of 9,262 conferences were held, up 12.14% year on year. The total number of foreign participants was 1,883,200, up 12.1% year on year. The economic benefit of exhibition reached about 40.303 billion Yuan, up 5.7% year on year.

Firstly, the exhibition industry has grown steadily, effectively stimulating economic growth. Year 2018 has attracted 104,400 foreign exhibitors from more than 150 countries and regions around the world, 455,600 domestic exhibitors, and 5.1867 million audience. Domestic and foreign exhibitors and merchants stayed in Xiamen for a total of 2.2542 million days. The exhibition number and area, exhibitors and attendees, the audience size have all broken the record. Large scale economic and trade exhibitions, including CIFIT, Stone Fair, Industry Expo, Buddhist Items & Crafts Fair (Spring and Autumn Editions), Auto Fair, Tea Expo, Cultural Expo, Yacht Expo, Tourism Expo, Art Expo, Marathon Expo, Animation Expo and Sports Expo, have all been successfully held. The newly planned “deep-rooted” expos have grown steadily, with more than 200 new IPs over the past five years, including Cross-Strait Paper Art Expo, Water Expo, Cross-Strait Smart Transportation Expo, Fishing Industry Expo, and China International Unmanned Stores Convention & Artificial Intelligence Retail Expo. In 2018, the main new exhibitions outnumbered 50, including China Materials Expo, Asia Int’l Environmental Landscaping Industry Expo, China Sports Industry Expo, Cross-Strait Cultural Industries Fair, China Xiamen Offshore Industry Expo, and China Xiamen International Internet+ Life Technology Expo.

Secondly, the rapid growth of the conference industry has driven the development of related industries. Participants stayed in Xiamen for about 963.77 million days throughout the year, an increase of 8.31% year-on-year. It has successfully held CIFIT International Investment Forum, the Straits Forum, Xiamen International MICE Week, 2018 Cross-Strait Entrepreneurs Summit and other high-end conferences, as well as the China Materials Conference, China International Intellectual Property Congress, the 20th Chinese Medical Association Orthopaedic Conference and the 13th COA International Conference, the 21st National Conference on Clinical Oncology and the 2018 CSCO Annual Meeting, Mengniu Dairy 2019 Customer Conference, 2018 GoldenSun Pharmaceuticals (China) Global Summit, BIGTIME 2018 New Product Launch Conference, China Hospital CEOs Conference, Chinese Physicians Association Kidney Physicians Branch 2018 Academic Annual Meeting, The 25th National Conference on Urology and other national, international super-large professional conference.

Thirdly, more high-end resources have been introduced to Xiamen. Xiamen has taken the lead in the development and implementation of the global marketing program for MICE industry to enhance its profile and influence , while fully connects with global well-known MICE organizations, including Union of International Fairs (UFI), International Convention and Conference Association (ICCA), International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE), International Association of Professional Conference Organizers (IAPCO) and other international authoritative exhibition organizations, expanding its “global friends network”. Himice Communications Group, Qingdao Haiming Exhibition Group and some other well-known exhibition companies have registered branches or offices in Xiamen, planning or introducing large-scale MICE events to Xiamen.

Fourthly, Xiamen has established its own MICE information platform. It has successively held Xiamen International MICE Week and related events, and launched the online "Xiamen City MICE Industry Public Information Service Platform" (Chinese and English bilingual versions). It has initiated the exhibition big data platform. The city’s MICE event platform, publicity platform and operation platform outpace other domestic MICE cities.