The Chinese New Year (CNY) is nigh and Macau’s tourist hotspots are already attracting huge crowds, with some shops and eateries reporting long queues.
The Post yesterday spoke with several local business operators in the city centre and Taipa to gauge their expectations about CNY visitors’ spending habits and the business environment in general, some describing the situation as “many visitors but not much spending”, while others said that “it’s busier than normal”.
The Year of Snake begins on Wednesday, January 29, with the mainland’s eight-day CNY Golden Week to end next Tuesday, on February 4.
According to the Public Security Police (PSP), more than 700,000 people entered and left Macau on Sunday, 280,000 of them tourists. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the number of arrivals and departures at the city’s checkpointed totalled 361,709, of which 151,192 were tourists, with mainlanders making up the largest number of arrivals, at 122,966.
Looking ahead
“These past few days have been comparatively busy” said Wong, a local shop assistant at a food souvenir shop in the city centre. Asked how it compared to last year’s CNY holiday, Wong, who is in her fifties, noted that overall, it has been busier than normal. She also seemed optimistic about sales throughout the CNY holiday, saying: “People buy our products because they think they taste good. So, I think that’s a guarantee”.
Meanwhile, for Danny, whose business selling snacks and drinks caters more to tourists than locals, and Ip, a friend who frequents his shop, it was hard to gauge how business will be at the moment [yesterday], especially on a weekday and before the CNY holiday even starts. It was also hard to predict how it will compare to the previous year, he said. However, Ip was quick to add: “Normally this street is pretty busy, so definitely business will pick up during the holiday”. Danny does not have an overall strategy for attracting more tourists to his business, but as musicians, Ip suggested playing music, which had drawn a queue of people before. “There were about 50 people who queued to hear us play the guitar,” said Ip.
A visitor holding a child poses under the festive Chinese New Year (CNY) decorations in the city centre yesterday afternoon. – Photo: Rui Pastorin
Lower expectations among some in city centre
Other businesses expressed lower expectations. For Leong, who operates a stall selling local snacks, business has just been “normal” despite the recent influx of tourists, adding that his location is not exactly ideal. “There are very few people in this street”, adding most of them go to the area around Largo do Senado, while noting, in general, business has been worse compared to last year. However, the 32-year-old said he expects more people come to the area during the holiday, suggesting that putting more decorations around the street could help bring in more customers.
Meanwhile, Michelle’s retail business is targeting locals. And like Leong, she does not have high expectations. “Last year was better”, Michelle, who is in her thirties, noted, attributing the decline in sales to more locals travelling to the mainland and shopping there, along with the rise of online shopping. There are also fewer tourists walking into her shop compared to before, when they would buy a lot of clothes, she said, adding: “I don’t know how I can attract more tourists to visit my shop, but I hope the government can help small-and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] more” through things like promotions.
Crowds of visitors stroll around Taipa’s Rua do Cunha (官也街) yesterday afternoon. – Photo: Yuki Lei
Crowds descend on Taipa
Meanwhile, the streets of Taipa, especially Rua do Cunha (官也街), were also crowded with tourists yesterday and, according to the Post’s observation, there were long queues at shops selling “street food” such as Portuguese egg tarts, beef offal, ice-cream, and mochi.
Leong, who works at a restaurant on Rua do Regedor (地堡街), said she has seen a “dramatic” increase in pedestrian traffic since last week, resulting in “about 40 percent more revenue than on weekdays”, mainly from Guangzhou, Jiangmen Shanghai and Xi’an, with Shanghai customers accounting for the majority.
According to Leong, this is the first time since the opening of the restaurant during the Mid-Autumn Festival in September last year that she felt a significant growth in business, and she expected the area to continue to see an increase in both footfall and her turnover over the CNY holiday period. However, she was quick to add that she was worried that the business would revert to the previous “zero” movement of people after the long mainland holiday break colloquially known as “Golden Week”.
In an effort to attract more patrons, Leong said the restaurant has already launched a cold beverage promotion and would consider introducing other different promotions and concessions in the future to tackle the off-season after the Chinese New Year. Leong also said she expected the restaurant to benefit from the upcoming “Old Taipa” pedestrianisation.
Certain “Old Taipa” streets will be pedestrianised from tomorrow to next Tuesday, with the aim of ensuring the orderly movement of people and traffic in the area during the CNY period, providing them with a comfortable and safe environment, according to the Transport Bureau (DSAT).
Although some businesspeople and their staff are joyful about the CNY holiday, others are woeful about it. Yan, who works in a pharmacy in the area, said that there has been an upward trend in visitor traffic in the past two weeks but “it has not been very helpful to business”, adding that after the three-year COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the unfavourable working environment, people were reluctant to splash out, resulting in poor turnover. He added that with the peak of influenza, there is, however, increased demand for medicines for colds, fever and coughs.
Ou, a shopkeeper of a food souvenir shop, said she did not feel any increase in the number of foot traffic in the area, which was “more or less the same as on normal weekends”, adding she expected the amount of foot traffic to increase significantly only after the third CNY day, i.e., on Friday. Like Yan, Ou said she has seen people’s consumption behaviour becoming more “sensible” and buying less after the pandemic: “Customers now mainly buy small quantities of food for their own consumption”.
Also owning a food souvenir shop on Rua do Cunha, another female shopkeeper said that “the shops here are not doing well,” except particular street-food shops and large-branded food souvenir shops, adding: “Although there are a lot of people, it does not mean that the business turnover of the shops will increase”. She also pointed out that “if business is not good in the tourist areas, it will be even more difficult to do business in local neighbourhoods”.
