Chongqing Exhibition Industry And Regional Economic Development

Conference and Exhibition industry, as a new economic form existing after the thirdindustry’s development become full-fledged, has become an economic growth point inmany countries and areas. Since reform and opening up, China’s economy has beendeveloping rapidly, on the basis of which, the exhibition industry develops and growsby an average annual rate of more than20%. It has become a new highlight in thedevelopment of China’s national economy.Chongqing, as the only municipality in the west of China, occupies a distinctlyimportant role in the process of western development. The development ofConference and Exhibition industry in Chongqing is of great importance for thesustainable economic growth, industrial restructuring and realizing thedevelop-the-west strategy. In2009, the State Council unveiled a paper, which detailsthe strategic plan on how to develop Chongqing into the “Exhibition City” in theupper reaches of Yangtze River. On this basis, Chongqing municipal government hasissued The Opinions of Chongqing Municipal People’s Government on Acceleratingthe Development of Exhibition Industry, which shows clearly the way to builtChongqing an “Exhibition City” of the upper reaches of Yangtze River from sixaspects: the guiding ideology, development goals, planning and layout, the main task,supporting policies and work measures. The Chongqing exhibition economy relies ona strong industrial background, which makes full use of the policy supports. After20years’ development, it has made a breakthrough no matter it comes to exhibition scale,exhibition conditions, or exhibition brand. The economic strength of exhibition hasenhanced significantly, the benefits have increased greatly and other aspects likeindustry association benefits have been brought into full play.This article is based on the existing exhibition economic theories, and takes “theinfluence of Chongqing’s MICE industry on regional economic development” as anobject of study.First, this article takes the influence of MICE industry on regional economicdevelopment as a starting point, synthesizes the researches of exhibition industry andregional economic development at home and abroad, and summed up four ways thatexhibition industry can help in promoting regional economic development: makingfull use of linkage effects to promote the development of related industries; providingtechnical information to promote the transformation development mode; improvingtrade structure to expand the scale of trade; and improving the urban image to enhance the attractiveness of economic development. Second, this article reviews each stage ofthe exhibition economic development of Chongqing, and has made a detailed analysison environment of exhibition economic development in Chongqing. It also analysesthe development status of Chongqing’s exhibition economy from aspects likeexhibition infrastructure, exhibition brand and exhibition projects and so on. Third,the article takes the MICE industry and its related41industries as samples, selectstheir six-year’s nominal production value from2007-2012. We calculates by GrayRelational Theory the degree of association between exhibition industry and itsrelated industries, ranks them and found out that: Chongqing MICE industry isdeveloped on the advantages of manufacturing industry, and it nurtured someexhibition brands related to competitive industries. However, there are a considerablenumber of competitive industries which have no exhibition brands. Finally, combiningtheories like industrial cluster, growth pole and so on, the article provides somesolutions on promoting the regional economic development with the helpChongqing’s exhibition industry.