Macau ferry operator TurboJET is “planning” to work with Macau’s six casino operators to spur extra visitor volume via Hong Kong routes by offering boat-plus-show ticket packages.
That is according to a director at TurboJET, Wong Man-chung, in comments to Chinese-language newspaper, Macao Daily News. The reference to “planning” was carried in paraphrase by the news outlet.
The Macau government has a policy aspiration of making Macau a “city of performing arts”. It has been encouraging Macau’s casino operators to invest in non-gaming activities including concerts and shows.
TurboJET’s Mr Wong didn’t go into detail on how such ferry-plus show packages might work in practice. One of the the city’s six casino operators that has a range of facilities for concerts and exhibitions – Sands China Ltd – already offers ferry services via Cotai Water Jet, run by Cotai Ferry Co Ltd on its behalf.
TurboJET is run by Shun Tak-China Travel Ship Management Ltd. Its parent organisations are Shun Tak Holdings Ltd – founded by the late Macau casino monopolist Stanley Ho Hung Sun – and China Travel International Investment Hong Kong Ltd, part of the mainland’s China Tourism Group.
Some ferry services from the mainland’s Guangdong province also serve Macau.
For the Hong Kong-Macau route, TurboJET currently runs over 60 daytime sailings, with a frequency of circa every 30 minutes, Mr Wong mentioned to Macao Daily News. He said that was about “50 percent” of per-day sailings in pre-Covid 19 times.
Currently, staff shortages due to factors including retirement of older crew members, meant round-the-clock services weren’t possible, noted Mr Wong.
Competition from bus services via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge – a factor pre-pandemic – had persisted, he noted, in comments to the newspaper.
Macau had nearly 1.12 million visitor arrivals via ferry in the first quarter this year: 42.7 percent of them people from mainland China, and another 38.4 percent of such arrivals being people from Hong Kong, according to data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.
First-quarter arrivals by sea equalled 62 percent of first-quarter 2019’s nearly 1.79 million.
