Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) Vice Chairman & Secretary-General Pansy Ho Chiu King said on Friday that the city’s six integrated resort (IR) operators were working “intensively” to implement their respective plans to carry out next year’s non-gaming investments and activities, which, she believed, would bring new changes to Macau and increase the city’s business opportunities.
The government signed late last year six gaming concession agreements with SJM, Galaxy, Wynn, MGM, Sands and Melco, all of which have promised investment in non-gaming attractions, according to Ho, who made the remarks during a group interview with local media before Friday’s GTEF closing ceremony at the Galaxy International Convention Centre (GICC) in Cotai.
The 10th edition of GTEF kicked off on Thursday and closed on Saturday.
With the government’s special focus on the enhancement of non-gaming attractions, “Macau has made great efforts to create new business formats,” said Ho, who is co-chairperson and executive director of MGM China Holdings Limited.
Regarding the fact that Macau only started to gradually abolish its COVID-19-pandemic travel restrictions at the beginning of this year, Ho pointed out that the tourism industries of many other countries have continued to improve since their COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures were cancelled as early as 2020, adding that Macau’s situation was different, with its close connections with the mainland, “involving a lot of people and things”. However, Ho was quick to add that the recovery of visitor numbers in a short period of time has shown Macau’s “strong resilience”.
When asked about the impact of economic changes in the mainland on Macau’s tourism industry, Ho said: “The mainland’s economy is closely linked to Macau’s,” adding that Macau’s tourism industry still needed to rely on tourists from the mainland, as even after the pandemic, the number of foreign visitors to Macau was still limited due to the cost of travel and lack of accessibility of transport.
If the mainland economy did not recover as well as expected, Macau would “of course” be affected indirectly, said Ho, who was quick to add that for the time being, there was not much concern about the issue.
On the positive front, Ho said that as the age structure of mainland tourists was becoming younger, it could promote the continuous innovation of the tourism industry in Macau, develop new tourism products and thus provide tourists new experiences of culture, art, technology and nature, thereby creating important tourism advantages for Macau.
Meanwhile, this year’s forum invited representatives of the six local IR operators to share their respective strategies vis-à-vis the connotation of tourism resources, through which, Ho said, she hoped that the forum could clearly share ideas with others about the performance of Macau’s tourism industry and its current situation while, at the same time, learning from the tourism industry practices of different places, so as to make Macau’s tourism products “more mature” and thus to shape its tourism industry chain.
Ho said: “Almost all service industries can be integrated with the tourism industry,” pointing out that the government’s “tourism+” integration could create a large-scale tourism industry.
Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) Vice Chairman & Secretary-General Pansy Ho Chiu King, co-chairperson and executive director of MGM China Holdings Limited, speaks to local journalists during Friday’s group interview before the GTEF closing ceremony at the Galaxy International Convention Centre (GICC) in Cotai.
– Photo: Yuki Lei
