Macau is seeking to expand meaningfully and soon the percentage of its visitors from overseas, beyond the 2.2 percent achieved in January, said on Wednesday the head of the city’s tourism bureau.
Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), was speaking on the sidelines of a public event.
“This year’s effort will be focused on [attracting] international visitors, so that the 2.2 percent will soon grow,” she stated.
She noted that a stepping up of direct air services, and of links with neighbouring regional transport hub Hong Kong, should help Macau get a greater number of international visitors.
According to data from Macau’s Statistics and Census Service, people from respectively the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States made up circa 1.4 percent of Macau’s 1.39-million visitor arrivals in January.
Ms Senna Fernandes noted in her Wednesday remarks that the daily visitor-arrival average for February had been 57,000. That would put the overall figure at about 1.60 million visitor arrivals for February.
In 2019, the trading year prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Macau had 39.4 million visitor arrivals. Of those, the ‘Greater China’ region – the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan – accounted for 92.2 percent. The balance, 7.8 percent, were from overseas, with South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia being the major source markets.
The Macao Tourism Industry Development Master Plan, issued in November 2021 by the city’s tourism office, had mentioned a number of steps to boost Macau’s profile with the high-end tourism segment.
They included moves to “market promotion activities towards the high-value target segments in mainland China and overseas to attract more high-value visitors to Macau and increase the proportion of high-value visitors”.
In February, Ms Senna Fernandes said Macau had budgeted circa MOP600 million (US$74.2 million) this year to stimulate inbound tourism, including via consumer roadshows on the Chinese mainland and overseas.
As part of the tender process for the new 10-year gaming concessions that started on January 1, the Macau government asked applicants to work to increase the number of overseas gamblers served by the city’s casino resorts. The updated regulatory framework has made possible distinct gambling zones for foreigners within Macau casinos, with the possibility that such play could be eligible for a lower tax rate on gross gaming revenue.
Some zones are already available to such customers, according to sources spoken to by GGRAsia.
All six Macau casino concessionaires have committed to the city’s government to invest MOP118.8 billion between them over the course of the new 10-year permits. As part of these investment amounts, the companies have announced plans to set up a number of overseas offices and target international customer markets, including Singapore, South Korea, Japan, India, and Thailand.
