There are different possibilities.
Some exchanges try to catch traders with 0% trading fees in the first x months to get liquidity. I personally prefer this, but of course it can fail if your exchange is not attractive (in sense of usability and API).
Instead of 0%, you can also make 0.1% taker and -0.1% maker -> so maker will get money for providing liquidity.
Other exchanges deal with professional liquidity providers and pay them fee.
"btcgreece" had advertisement of their liquidity provider at their website... but I can not access the website, maybe they are already gone. I think simply search google for btc exchange liquidity provider or something.
Exchange like "xbtce" simply connects to another exchange. Before btc-e went down, they had all liquidity from btc-e plus their own. Now it is any other exchange.
I think this is a complicated solution.. it might be better to ask the other exchange first, if they allow you to copy their orderbook.
And of course you need to be able to shift money between your and the other exchange easily... I do not suggest this.
"Hitbtc" has "maker contracts". I doubt anyone is market making at hitbtc, since the contract details are very hard, but the idea is still good:
https://hitbtc.com/mmedit:
when reading your last sentence, it sounds very much like the exchange "quoine"... they also build their own "fake liquidity" with very stupid bots. I made ton of money by arbitrage with their stupid bots, but of course all trades were reverted, since they made a loss, since it was just their fake volume.
I hate this kind of liquidity and will not advise anyone to trade at such an exchange with fake liquidity.