Travel Industry Council of Macau (TICM) Chairman Andy Wu Keng Kuong said yesterday that the government has room for improvement in the handling of the recent COVID-19 cases, adding that the local government and the Zhuhai Municipal Government should have notified visitors and residents about the recent shortening of the nucleic acid test (NAT) validity period from 14 days to just 24 hours via SMS.
Wu made the remarks on a current affairs phone-in programme hosted by Ou Mun Tin Toi, the Chinese-language radio channel of government-owned broadcaster TDM.
When talking about how the new COVID-19 cases have affected the local tourism industry, Wu said that his sector had been feeling “hopeful” about the upcoming National Day Golden Week holiday but was now “disappointed” because of the new novel coronavirus development. He pointed out that souvenir shops had been ordering more goods for Golden Week, while the city’s hotels had been 80 percent booked but now visitors were cancelling their bookings. He noted that hotels in Cotai have reduced their hotel room rates – from 2,000 patacas per night to just around 1,000 patacas per night.
Wu said that even though the mandatory quarantine regulations between Zhuhai and Macau would probably be lifted tonight, the number of visitors visiting Macau for the Golden Week would not rebound. He said that as the validity period for the NAT result was too short, it would hamper visitors’ desire to come to Macau.
“In the past two years, the tourism industry has been worn out by the COVID-19 pandemic. We don’t know where the end of the last kilometre is,” Wu said.
“Last kilometre” refers to Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng’s well-known quote about COVID-19 prevention work, meaning that Macau has been doing great at its COVID-19 prevention work, yet the “last kilometre” of the city’s COVID-19 battle has just started.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Industry and Commerce Federation of the Macau Central and Southern District, Lei Cheok Kuan, said the key to economic recovery was to lift the mandatory quarantine between Macau, the mainland and Hong Kong. He pointed out that if the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities stay aligned with the mainland’s COVID-19 prevention and control standards, the area’s governments could set up a travel bubble among the 11 GBA cities. He said that doing so could help domestic circulation within the area and revitalise the economy of the nine cities in Guangdong as well as the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
Lei also pointed out that even though the government has given out two rounds of e-consumption subsidies to help local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), he urged the government to communicate with the SMEs that if they borrowed money from the government the payback period should be more flexible.
Travel Industry Council of Macau (TICM) Chairman Andy Wu Keng Kuong (left) and Industry and Commerce Federation of the Macau Central and Southern District Chairman Lei Cheok Kuan attend a current affairs phone-in programme hosted by Ou Mun Tin Toi, the Chinese-language radio channel of government-owned broadcaster TDM, yesterday. Photo courtesy of TDM
