GGRAsia – Macau ferry op TurboJET mulls trip+show promos with casinos

Macau ferry op TurboJET mulls trip+show promos with casinos

May 06, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

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.