How would you describe Macao’s tourism identity?
Macao’s unique tourism identity is its more than 400 years of East-meets-West historical heritage, standing side by side with state-of-the-art integrated resorts. Along with a strong calendar of festivities and events, a diverse gastronomy and more.
What are the major milestones the industry has marked over the past 25 years?
Firstly, the gaming industry liberalisation that commenced in 2001. That led to the opening of multiple world-class tourism complexes with hotel, entertainment, MICE events, shopping, dining and other facilities [including gaming] all under the same roof.
In 2003, the Central Government launched its Facilitated Individual Travel (FIT) Scheme to support the development of the tourism industry in the Macao and Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions. This saw a boom in visitor arrivals from the mainland. The scheme now covers 59 mainland cities.
In 2005, the Historic Centre of Macao was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, making it the 31st designated World Heritage Site in China. Then, in 2017, Macao was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. Both designations strongly endorse the city’s singular cultural heritage, providing two major “tourism calling cards” to Macao.
More recently, in 2022, the government granted new concession contracts to the six gaming operators in the city – requiring them to invest in iconic [cultural] projects, develop non-gaming sectors and to explore overseas markets, further solidifying Macao as a diverse and quality tourism destination.
Using figures, can you illustrate how tourism has grown since Macao’s return to the motherland?
Here are a few figures to put things in perspective, comparing 1999 with the pre-pandemic tourism peak of 2019. In total, Macao welcomed 7.4 million visitors in 1999, and 39.4 million in 2019. Visitors from the mainland increased from 1.65 million to 27.9 million during that time. South Korea is one of the Special Administrative Region (SAR)’s top international visitor source markets and, in 2014, was our first foreign market to surpass half a million visitors. Macao welcomed 33,000 South Koreans in 1999 and over 743,000 in 2019.
How important is cultural tourism in Macao?
Multicultural heritage is an important part of Macao and a major asset as a tourism city. MGTO thinks of it as a “golden calling card”. Our UNESCO heritage sites and status as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, along with Macao’s intangible heritage, are key elements of the city’s appeal as a tourism destination.
According to MGTO’s 2023 Travel Behaviour Research Survey, respondents’ favourite things about Macao were: number one, excellent and diversified food and restaurants; number two, promotional travel offers; number three, UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
What are some new directions the industry’s taken in recent years?
In recent years, we have had more focus on increasing the number of international tourists visiting Macao. We’ve also introduced the concept of “tourism +” to enhance synergies between tourism and related sectors. Think “tourism + conventions and exhibitions”, “tourism + culture”, “tourism + sports” and more. Then, we are encouraging visitors to explore off-the-beaten-track parts of the city.
Let’s talk about those in turn. Macao’s welcoming more foreign visitors?
Since fully reopening to international travel at the beginning of 2023, the emphasis has been on boosting visitor flows from overseas markets – especially those from Southeast and Northeast Asian countries with direct flights to the city. That’s while continuing to solidify Macao’s top visitor source market, namely Greater China. Attracting more international visitors is at the core of Macao’s development as a ‘World Centre of Tourism and Leisure’.
Next year, in 2025, MGTO plans to intensify efforts to expand its reach into medium-to-long-haul markets, such as India, the Middle East, Europe, and other regions.
Tell us about “tourism +”.
“Tourism +” is a way to attract a greater variety of visitors, encourage tourism consumption across the whole city and create more opportunities for tourism-related sectors – especially small and medium-sized enterprises.
“Tourism + sports” is one of the avenues Macao is exploring to diversify its offerings. The city is moving towards staging more sports events, with the upcoming co-hosting of the 15th National Games in 2025 (with Guangdong and Hong Kong) set to generate great momentum in such endeavours.
To its great advantage in this field, Macao already has the iconic Macau Grand Prix. For seven decades, the Grand Prix has been a great example of the power of the dynamic between sports and tourism in terms of attracting visitors, promoting the city, and generating a wide array of other related events and activities. The Macau Grand Prix Museum, under MGTO, is a great example; it blends history, sports, technology, culture and creativity.
What’s behind the push for tourists to explore less-trodden parts of the city?
Encouraging visitors to explore more off-the-beaten-track areas is one of MGTO’s priorities. This focus on developing community tourism serves two main purposes: on one hand, to encourage a more in-depth travel experience in the city; on the other hand, to drive more visitor flows to the different districts of Macao – boosting consumption in local economies and benefiting merchants and other small businesses in these areas.
How does Macao’s increasing integration with the mainland impact its tourism industry?
The GBA, including the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, continues to have a huge impact on tourism in the region – opening up new opportunities for the local tourism industry.
Cross-border transportation infrastructures like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the forthcoming Light Rail Transit Link to Hengqin make it easier to travel within the GBA. So do new travel facilitation measures. For example, one of these enables mainland Chinese visitors to make multiple trips between Hengqin and Macao over a seven-day period, thanks to a special endorsement to their visas.
Together with tourism counterparts in the region, MGTO is also working to raise the profile of multi-destination tourism within the GBA for mainlanders and foreign visitors.
How does MGTO manage sustainable tourism growth?
The management of sustainable tourism growth is work that involves the whole city and is being conducted on multiple fronts, given that tourism is a main pillar of Macao’s economy. In accordance with Macao’s Tourism Industry Development Master Plan, we have a number of action plans ranging from encouraging hotels and tourism-related industries to adopt international green building standards, waste management and recycling protocol, to optimising pedestrian environments. We use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations to assess our progress.
