Macao’s tourism market is showing signs of continuous recovery as hotel bookings for Labour Day holiday in the first week of May, the traditional peak season in Macau, have reached nearly 50%. The past week saw a total of 190,000 visitor arrivals, a daily average of 27,000 arrivals, the highest since the pandemic, according to the Tourist Office. Meanwhile the hotel promotion scheme launched by the Tourist Office in collaboration with e-commerce platforms in mainland China is also doing well, selling thousands of hotel coupons per day.
Earlier Macau’s Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng has revealed that the Government was in talks with Guangdong Province to try to hammer out a pilot scheme of mutual recognition of Covid-19 vaccine certificates in a bid to further relax travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. If the scheme gets the green light, it is expected that daily average visitor arrivals to Macau will rise back to as many as 60,000.
The number of mainland visitors under the Facilitated Individual Travel scheme is also expected to rise further if the exemption of Covid-19 nucleic acid tests and the resumption of online visa application can be implemented in the near future. Solo tourists from mainland China used to make up the bulk of visitor arrivals to Macau.
