Interview by Rui Pastorin
Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes told the Post in an interview yesterday that her office is gradually seeing more visitors going to different parts of Macau beyond the main touristy areas.
The veteran tourism chief spoke with the Post after the launch of the “Behind the Scenes of Star Cuisine” workshop series at the Galaxy International Convention Centre (GICC) in Cotai.
Senna Fernandes noted that the city’s main tourist areas have quite a lot of people concentrated in them, where it is “very difficult to move around” during peak times. She pointed out that Macau has a lot to offer in other parts of town, along with products that MGTO thinks tourists could be interested in.
“So, we do feel the need to introduce to them, or give them more reasons to visit different parts of town so that, one, the benefits of tourism can be further spread out and, secondly, the visitors themselves would feel better because they don’t feel it’s so crowded in certain parts of town”, as well as enjoying different parts of Macau at “a very leisurely pace”, Senna Fernandes said.
She noted that there is a lot more that MGTO would like to introduce to Macau visitors, noting that it has come up with various videos introducing, for example, the northern part of the city and elsewhere in Macau. “Going forward, we will be looking at different opportunities to actually further promote the different parts of town”, she added.
Moreover, with Easter not being a traditional holiday in the mainland, Senna Fernandes expects that Macau would be looking at more visitors from Hong Kong or elsewhere between Good Friday and Easter Monday. She said that she did not have a number in terms of predictions for Easter yet, but hoped to at least get “quite a good result”.
Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes addresses yesterday’s launch of the “Behind the Scenes of Star Cuisine” workshop series.
– Photo: Rui Pastorin
