The Macau Government Tourism Office’s (MGTO) five-day “Macao Week in Shandong•Qingdao” tourism promotional campaign ended yesterday, displaying “Made-in-Macau”, “Macau Brand”, “Macau Design” products as well as products from Portuguese-speaking countries, which were well received by consumers in the northern port city of Qingdao, according to a Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) statement yesterday.
Qingdao (“Green Island”) lies some 1,680 kilometres northeast of Macau, and has about nine million inhabitants.
The event was held from Thursday through yesterday at the Qingdao’s Olympic Sailing Centre Square, showcasing Macau’s “colourful” dimensions of tourism, trade and commerce, culture and creativity, sports and entertainment, in order to spotlight Macau’s “fascinating” elements of “tourism +”, according to yesterday’s IPIM statement,
According to the statement, some businesspeople from Qingdao considered the products from Macau and Portuguese-speaking countries to be of high quality and good value, which encouraged them to visit Macau in the future to taste the food here, while some Macau exhibitors in the bakery business said they had stocked up before the fair, but their products were snapped up on the second day, and they would cooperate with potential agents they met at the fair to ship their products to Shandong in the future.
According to the statement, the event featured a live e-commerce broadcast for the first time, where some mainland customers placed orders for Macau and Portuguese-speaking countries’ specialties such as handicrafts and biscuits, wines and garments through the live broadcast, helping enterprises to broaden their sales channels through the online and offline exhibition and sale.
Exchanges in different areas
During the “Macao Week in Shandong•Qingdao”, according to an MGTO statement on Saturday, a “Window to Macau” display area was unveiled at the MGM RESORT QINGDAO to showcase Macau’s tourism resources to Qingdao residents.
In addition, the MGTO held a food promotion event called “Macau-Portuguese Cuisine” at the Qingdao Intercontinental Hotel to attract the city’s residents to taste the specialties to showcase Macau’s “charm” as a UNESCO “Creative City of Gastronomy”, including Orelha (pig’s ear) Salad, White Wine Steamed Clams, Sardinhas Assadas (roast sardines), Curried Crab, Portuguese Chilli Prawns, Minchi de Porco (minced pork), African Chicken and Portuguese Egg Tarts, introducing the flavours of Macau and Portugal to Qingdao, according to a separate MGTO statement on Saturday.
Macau became a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2017.
According to a statement on Friday by the MGTO, movie screenings were specially arranged at the roadshow for the first time, featuring 10 movies about Macau, or were filmed against the backdrop of Qingdao or Macau.
Macau and Qingdao are both member cities of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN).
IPIM underlined in a separate statement on Friday that it held a “Qingdao-Macau MICE, Trade and Investment Promotion” seminar during the “Macao Week in Shandong•Qingdao”, introducing Macau’s latest tourism environment, events and new tourism products as well as promoting business and exhibition opportunities in Macau and the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
According to IPIM, the seminar attracted over 150 representatives from Macau and Qingdao enterprises, with over 100 business meetings arranged between 40 Macau enterprises and 110 enterprises from Qingdao, covering retail and wholesale, wine trading, catering, e-commerce and cultural tourism and conventions. Several wine trading companies reached major deals on the spot, the IPIM statement issued on Friday noted.
This undated handout photo provided by the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) yesterday shows scores of people visiting the Macau Government Tourism Office’s (MGTO) five-day “Macao Week in Shandong•Qingdao” fair at the Olympic Sailing Centre Square in the northern port city’s Shinan district. – Photo by IPIM
