Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes says the agency will increase its promotion to foreign visitors in the second half of the year including via collaborations with major international media groups such as the BBC and CNN.
As reported by IAG, there were nearly 1.17 million international visitor arrivals to Macau in the first six months of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 146.4% and recovering to 67.2% of the same period in 2019. However, that means a significant increase is required in the second half of the year to achieve the government’s goal of attracting 3 million international visitors.
According to Senna Fernandes, the government will maintain this target, explaining that a large-scale online promotion program targeting international visitors would begin soon.
“We will work with major international media organizations, such as the BBC and CNN, to promote Macau,” she said. “The government will work with a variety of Macau companies to participate in the program.”
However, the Director did not disclose the content of the program or the amount of money to be spent, only saying “the government will announce the content of the program soon.”
Senna Fernandes believes that the number of visitors to Macau this year will be higher than expected, with “the number of visitors in July being higher than that of June … and with more events taking place in the second half of the year, the total number of visitors by the end of the year could be over 33 million visitors.”
She also poured cold water on questions from media about the possible implementation of a “tourism tax”. This concept was first proposed pre-pandemic but was ultimately abandoned in 2020.
As a tourist city, Senna Fernandes said such a tax would not be conducive to the development of Macau’s image, and that “as a tourist city, we should continue to make improvements and add more tourism support facilities so as to better divert tourists.
“We should not achieve the goal of diverting tourists by increasing their travelling costs in a negative way.”
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