GGRAsia – Circa 50pct Macau tourism incentives airfare tied: govt

Circa 50pct Macau tourism incentives airfare tied: govt

Feb 26, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

For 2024, nearly half of Macau’s promotional travel offers for international visitors relate to air-ticket discounts, as the city works to draw a greater number of travellers from outside the Greater China region. That is according to the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).

Since January, it has distributed a total of 250,000 “gifts” to international travellers, via various forms of promotional offer on Macau-bound transportation fees, hotel stays and some travel packages, the tourism office noted in a Friday update.

The monetary value of the incentives was not specified in the release. The Macau government has previously mentioned budgeting MOP235 million (US$29.2 million) in 2024 for travel promotion campaigns to draw international visitors.

The international air ticket discounts distributed via several airlines make up 49 percent of the “250,000 gifts” that MGTO is offering visitors from outside the Greater China region, the Friday release said.

That includes MGTO partnering with Air Macau for various air-ticket offers, such as discounts or “buy-one-get-one-free” promotions. Air Macau-related incentives require eligible travellers to stay in Macau for a certain number of days.

The update stated: “MGTO will partner with other international airlines to provide different forms of special offers for international visitors setting off from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, [South] Korea and North America”, adding promotion offers would include time-limited special prices on air tickets.

Aside from the 49 percent of incentive offers on airfares, a further 46 percent would be for either free bus tickets or free ferry tickets for international travellers on the inbound leg of their journey from Hong Kong International Airport. International cruise ship travellers having a port stopover in Hong Kong would have the possibility of claiming discounted transport fares to Macau.

The remaining 5 percent of the MGTO promotional incentives are for “travel packages” including restaurant coupons, show ticket discounts, or hotel stay discounts.

In January, Macau recorded 2.86-million visitor arrivals, with 93 percent of the people from the Greater China region – meaning either the mainland, Hong Kong or Taiwan – and the remainder from overseas markets, show data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.

Outside the Greater China region, South Korea (50,552), the Philippines (34,102) and Indonesia (13,961) were the top-three overseas source markets for Macau’s January visitor arrivals.