Multi-stop ferry services are being considered by operators serving Macau routes, as a way of rebuilding business volume toward pre-pandemic levels, says Susana Wong Soi Man, director of Macau’s Marine and Water Bureau. She was speaking to local media on the sidelines of a weekend event.
The official acknowledged that the sea-spanning Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge – which opened in October 2018, prior to the pandemic – had also influenced market conditions for the ferry trade.
Currently, the daily volume of passengers carried by ferries serving Macau, ranges from “10,000 to 17,000” a day, she stated. Daily volume could go up to “30,000” during holiday periods, she noted in the Saturday comments.
But the non-holiday daily volume on Hong Kong-Macau routes was “60 percent to 70 percent” of 2019 level, Ms Wong stated. Sailings between Hong Kong and Macau are offered by two ferry brands: TurboJET and Cotai Water Jet.
Shenzhen, in neighbouring Guangdong, mainland China, has daily ferry links to Macau via TurboJET and another brand, Yuet Tung Shipping. The volume on those routes has been affected by the recent commissioning of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, a cross-sea bridge able to reduce travel time between those two Guangdong cities from two hours, to only 30 minutes, Ms Wong mentioned.
Ferry operators have been looking for “various solutions” to boost volume, said the bureau director.
“I’ve heard that they [ferry operators] are planning to have a ferry to stop by a few terminals,” in one trip. For instance, “a ferry that departing from Hong Kong might stop by the [Hong Kong International] Airport or other places,” on a single trip, Ms Wong mentioned to the media.
The official added: “The commercial aspects – the cost-effectiveness of the ferry operation, and how to attract more people to take their ferries – are within their [ferry operators’] considerations. We will work with their needs.”
In the first eight months of this year, Macau received an aggregate of 2.8 million visitor arrivals by sea, a tally that represented a 61.7-perent recovery from the same period in 2019, according to visitor data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service. The Hong Kong market – the biggest contributor to the overall maritime-traveller cohort to Macau – accounted for nearly 1.19 million journeys in the January to August period. Nonetheless, volume was down circa 6 percent year-on-year, and only recovered to 51.2 percent of the comparable period in 2019.
In the first eight months of this year, the number of Hong Kong-originating visitors arriving at the Macau checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge reached just above 2.72 million, which was circa 61 percent higher than the same period in 2019.
