The director pf the Macao Government Tourism Office, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, says the MGTO is exploring new ways of bringing visitors into Macau as part of its efforts to target new tourism markets.
Speaking at G2E Asia on Wednesday, Senna Fernandes named countries like Cambodia and Myanmar as presenting new opportunities to diversify visitation from the traditional source markets of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
But she also pointed to Fujian and Guangdong Provinces as providing a unique access point for visitors from countries such as Australia.
“In terms of the Belt and Road Initiative for Macau, our main working partners within Greater Bay Area context are Guangdong Province for one and secondly Fujian Province. These are the two provinces in terms of national strategy that we are working with,” she said.
“With our collaboration with Fujian Province we’re trying new initiatives in places like Australia because there are direct flights going from Australia to Fujian but not to Macau.
“So we are trying, rather than the tried and tested method of coming to Macau through Hong Kong, to see if people can fly to Fujian first then to Macau. Why not to Guangdong first and then to Macau by land?”
Senna Fernandes noted that South Korea leapfrogged Taiwan into third place in 1Q19 in terms of visitors to Macau.
