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Macau has the potential
to further develop business tourism, which could compensate for the smaller
contribution to its local gross domestic product (GDP) from the gaming
industry, said international professional service consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC).
A report on the
development and integration of culture, tourism and MICE (meetings, incentives,
conferences and exhibitions) between Guangdong province and Macau, co-authored
by the PwC and the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM), was unveiled at
a seminar on the first day of the 2023 Macau International Environmental
Co-operation Forum & Exhibition (MIECF) held on Thursday.
Speaking about the findings of the report at the seminar, Wang Bin, the managing partner of the PwC’s Guangdong market, said Macau had seen a surge of business travellers following the lifting of years-long Covid travel restrictions since the end of last year.
About 33.6 percent of
visits to Macau in the first quarter of 2023 was about MICE events or business
trips, according to the PwC survey. “This represents a significant surge from
the proportion of only 6.1 percent in the same period [of 2019] prior to the
pandemic,” Wang pointed out. “Business travel has become a major purpose for
tourists visiting Macau.”
The survey also found
that 20.7 percent of visitors so far this year came to Macau for holidaymaking,
13.9 percent for shopping, 11.1 percent for family visits, and 3.5 percent for
gambling.
Wang also said that the
city had the potential to expand business travel, given its cluster of MICE and
resort facilities that satisfy the diverse needs of business travellers.
“The Macau government
is also committed to developing ‘tourism +’, and business travel is an
essential part of ‘tourism +’,” she noted.
“The development of
business travel can help Macau make up for the gaming sector’s smaller
contribution to the local economy, expedite the local economic diversification,
and facilitate youth employment,” she added.
According to the latest official figures, the gaming industry accounted for about 25.8 per cent of Macau’s GDP in 2021, compared with 50.9 percent in 2019, given that the pandemic and heightened supervision took a toll on the city’s casinos.
Macau and Hengqin
In regard to how the
city can advance business travel, the PwC executive said Macau could leverage
its regional advantages, namely, its involvement in the Guangdong-Hong
Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, and its co-development with the Guangdong-Macau
In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, Zhuhai.
The authorities could
ease visa policies for visitors to travel freely among Macau, Hengqin or even
Zhuhai within a certain time period, for instance, seven days, Wang proposed.
“Business travellers can then attend meetings in Macau… whilst enjoying
entertainment and offerings in Hengqin,” she said.
Latest official figures
put the number of visitors to Macau at 11.65 million in the first half of 2023,
a surge of 240 percent year on year. The tally amounted to 57.4 percent of the
pre-Covid volume.
According to the PwC
survey, about 60 percent of visitors to Macau so far this year came from the
Greater Bay Area, while 8 percent came from the Yangtze River Delta in mainland
China, a potential visitor source market for the city in the future. The
Yangtze River Delta comprises Shanghai, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang
and Jiangxi.
The seminar held on the
first day of 2023 MIECF was titled the ‘Greenovation Empowerment of the
Development of Bleisure Tourism’, and was co-organised by the Macau Trade and
Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) and PwC.
Delivering an opening remark
in the seminar, U U Sang, president of IPIM, said there had been two major
changes in the behaviour of business travellers in the post-pandemic era — they
stay longer and they demand a wider range of offerings.
James Chang, managing
partner of regional economic clusters and south markets of PwC China, also
underscored at the seminar the potential for business tourism to grow.
He expects the global
size of business travel to recover to the pre-Covid volume next year, and the
size of the business travel market in China alone to reach US$400 billion.
More green and
sustainable solutions should be incepted for businesses to adopt in the face of
the rising business travel market, he added.
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