Macao and Hong Kong are working together to deepen their tourism cooperation. The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) invited over 100 Hong Kong tourism industry leaders to visit Macao for a two-day familiarization program. The delegation consisted of government officials, tourism sector representatives, and members of the media. During their visit, the delegates participated in a work meeting, a Macao & Hengqin destination presentation, and a Hong Kong & Macao travel trade networking seminar. They also had the opportunity to inspect various tourist attractions and hotels.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong highlighted the dedication to promoting integrated leisure tourism development. He expressed that over the last three years, Macao’s tourism industry has undergone great transformation, and went on to indicate that the SAR Government will continue to join hands with the travel trade in the future to reorganize tourism resources in hand, steer the integrated leisure tourism industry forward and unveil a brand-new chapter for Macao as a world center of tourism and leisure. Joint efforts will be made to open up a new landscape for the integrated leisure tourism development.
MGTO Director Helena Senna Fernandes stated that with easing of Macao’s pandemic border measures, the sea and land transportation services between Hong Kong and Macao are steadily resuming operation. Visitor arrivals from Hong Kong have been considerably rising in recent days. MGTO has vigorously geared up for promotional initiatives tailored for Hong Kong as a visitor source market, including the latest special offer on transportation, and arrangement for KOLs to visit and spotlight Macao on social media.
Fernandes indicated that the travel trade networking seminar briefed Hong Kong’s travel trade on Macao’s latest tourism resources. Macao and Hong Kong travel agencies were encouraged to forge partnerships, launch new travel products and special offers. All of these will boost mutual visitations, open up new possibilities for business cooperation and bolster the tourism industry towards recovery in Hong Kong and Macao.
Member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong SAR (Functional Constituency – Tourism), Perry Yiu, stated that this exchange visit bears great significance to the tourism development of Hong Kong and Macao. Visits, tourism and business exchange are gradually resuming and returning to normalcy between Hong Kong and Macao. The occasion formalized in-depth cooperation between the two cities and provides precious opportunities for the travel trade.
Multi-destination travel to Macao and Hong Kong has all along been a popular tourism product among Mainland and overseas visitors. In the post-pandemic era, it will be more essential than ever for the two cities to forge closer cooperation and brand their destinations together, steering the Greater Bay Area towards becoming a world-class destination.
According to Travel Weekly Asia, the recent Spring Festival Golden Week saw a total of 451,000 visitors, 165,000 of which were from Hong Kong. The SAR has been the second largest visitor source market for Macao. Capitalizing on easing of pandemic border measures between Hong Kong and Macao, MGTO has activated its advance marketing plan for Hong Kong to unfold a broad array of promotional initiatives and special offers, actively getting prepared to welcome Hong Kong visitors.
On January 8th, China abandoned its zero-Covid policy, opening its borders to international travel after almost three years. While some requirements still apply for the rest of the world, as of today, travel between the mainland and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao has resumed.
Customs checkpoints between China and the two territories have reopened. “In order to ensure the safety, order and smoothness of customs clearance and cross-border passenger transport and to further improve the experience of personnel exchanges, the port inspection department and cross-border passenger transport operators have strengthened organization, coordination and dynamic scheduling, so that the ports adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao in the mainland should be opened as much as possible”, read a joint statement from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Offices.
After the announcement was made on February 3rd, searches for round trip tickets between Hong Kong and the mainland increased by seven times on travel website Qunar, according to data from state media China Transportation News. For the special administrative region, people from the mainland make up the majority of tourists, with about 51 million arrivals in 2018, or almost seven times its own population, so their return is essential to the city’s recovery.
