GGRAsia – Macau tapping north China tourists with Tianjin roadshow

Macau tapping north China tourists with Tianjin roadshow

Aug 29, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s six gaming resort businesses are to take part in a Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) five-day roadshow starting on Thursday (August 31) and running until September 4, in Tianjin city, northern China, to promote travel to the southern-China holiday destination.

A focus is to diversify Macau’s source markets for mainland tourists by enticing visitors from the the north of the country to travel during the autumn holidays, said Macau’s tourism authority in a press release.

China’s State Council has designated September 29 to October 6 inclusive as the holiday period known as October Golden Week. The period encompasses the lunar-calendar based Mid-Autumn Festival, falling on September 29 this year, and China’s National Day on October 1.

Since the normalisation of travel within China after the lifting of most Covid-19 -related restrictions in January, MGTO had hosted a number of tourism-promotion campaigns on the mainland, with the participation of all Macau’s casino-resort businesses. Marketing of the actual casino offer of the resorts is not allowed in mainland China.

Macau had on average “over 100,000” visitor arrivals daily in the first half of August, exceeding government expectations, said Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of MGTO, in remarks to local media last week.

During the first seven months this year the Macau visitor market had – as in pre-Covid times – been dominated by travellers from mainland China. That latter market’s 9.45 million visitor arrivals accounted for approximately 65.6 percent of the city’s aggregate of 14.4 million in January to July, according to Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.

Neighbouring Guangdong province remained Macau’s top feeder market, providing over 5.13 million visitors in the first seven months. In the same period, Macau got only 54,284 visitors from Tianjin city, accounting for only 0.6 percent of the 9.45-million mainland total.

The Tianjin roadshow (element pictured in an artist’s impression) is part of Macau’a effort to “continue expanding” its mainland-visitor sources, MGTO stated in an update.

The roadshow is to feature a Macau-gastronomy promotion campaign co-hosted by Sands China Ltd and the St Regis Tianjin Hotel, according to an MGTO update released on Tuesday.