Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said yesterday that the latest repeat visitor figures would help her office decide what tourism products or activities should be launched to give tourists another reason to revisit Macau.
Senna Fernandes made the comment while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch ceremony of AirAsia’s Macau-Johor Bahru route at Macau International Airport.
Senna Fernandes said that Malaysia continued to be a very important market for Macau because of the country’s large population travelling more nowadays.
Malaysia has about 32 million inhabitants.
Macau’s tourism chief said that the new route would also open up the market for incentive trips besides leisure tourism.
Asked about the recent statistics showing that 55 percent of all visitor arrivals in September were repeat visitors, Senna Fernandes said that such data would help if events and activities needed to be adjusted based on their target markets.
“It’s been our strategy to have different activities every month to diversify our tourism products and also to give new and repeat visitors more reasons to keep coming to Macau,” she said.
In terms of giving repeat visitors something new to visit, Senna Fernandes pointed out that the Chinese slogan of the current MGTO promotion is “Experience Macau in Unlimited Ways”, aiming to give visitors a different experience of Macau each time they are in the city through different programmes and activities.
In English, the office uses the slogan “Experience Macau Your Own Style”.
Senna Fernandes also said that while the Southeast Asia market was still important, the bureau was “very glad to work with airlines to open up” mid- and long-haul markets.
“In order to attract medium- and long-haul flights, we also have to attract people from around Macau to use Macau as a hub, as a base to fly outwards, and there’s still a lot of work to do, and we have to be very practical about that,” she said.
Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes speaks to reporters on the sidelines of AirAsia’s launch of a new route at the local airport yesterday. Photo: Monica Leong
