One of the major focuses of cooperation between Trip.com Group and the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) in recent times is attracting foreigners based in Mainland China to Macau, a senior executive of the Chinese multinational travel service provider said on Friday (today).
Edison Chen, General Manager of Destination Marketing of Trip.com Group, made the remarks on the sidelines of the 2022 Global Partner Summit, which was held in the city for the second consecutive year.
Edison Chen, General Manager of Destination Marketing Department of Trip.com Group
Both Trip.com and MGTO held a partnership launch ceremony at the summit on Friday to strengthen their collaboration. Macau Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong and CEO of Trip.com Group Jane Sun attended the ceremony.
Speaking to media from Macau and mainland China, Mr Chen said his company had worked hand-in-hand with MGTO in the past two years to promote the “unique culture, gastronomy, and leisure offerings of Macau among many other attractions”.
“We all want to encourage more mainland Chinese visitors to Macau,” he added.
Given the recent policy changes concerning Macau — namely, the resumption of the issuance of electronic visas for mainland Chinese to visit the territory since November and the exemption of quarantine for foreign nationals based on the mainland travelling to Macau — both parties have new focuses in their promotion initiatives.
MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes
“This year we have a small breakthrough in terms of allowing expatriates living on the mainland to come to Macau without quarantine,” MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes also said on the sidelines of the summit. “We have been utilising very much our partnerships with operators like [Trip.com] in mainland China to start selling to this particular group of people.”
“The policy started in September this year, and we’ve already received over 1,000 bookings coming in. We do believe that there is a lot of demand for travelling to Macau from foreigners living on the mainland,” she illustrated.
“That is the first step,” she added. “The second step will kick in when there are possibilities of [Macau] opening up to the rest of the world.”
Easing despite fluctuations
Following the zero-COVID policy on the mainland, Macau has only maintained largely quarantine-free travel arrangements with the mainland since the start of the pandemic three years ago, and arrivals from other places to Macau have to undergo five days of hotel quarantine and three days of home quarantine.
Stressing the need for Macau to “synchronise” its travel policies and border controls with the mainland, Ms Senna Fernandes added she believes the city will gradually open up.
Mr Chen of Trip.com also shared a similar perspective on China’s COVID measures and border controls. “The overall direction [of the Chinese central government] is to gradually ease the measures,” he said. “In this extraordinary period, we have to be prepared that there will be fluctuations, but easing is the overall direction, which will be beneficial to the recovery of the tourism market.”
According to information provided by the travel service provider, the number of searches for Macau on its platform rose 213% year-on-year after the restoration of e-visas for mainlanders to Macau in November.
But this hasn’t propelled yet the rise of visitation to Macau due to the recent COVID-19 outbreaks in a number of provinces and cities on the mainland, including nearby Guangdong province. Since 16 November, people crossing between Macau and Zhuhai, Guangdong have been required to present a negative nucleic acid test result issued within 24 hours.
The resumption of the package tours from the mainland to Macau after a hiatus of three years has also been delayed, despite the fact that it was originally meant to start in November.
Macau is still waiting for final approval from the central government over a resumption of package tours, Ms Senna Fernandes added.
At the summit on Friday, Trip.com Group also inked a strategic pact with Macau gaming operator Sands China Ltd to deepen cooperation on various fronts, including product marketing, content marketing and offline shopping to spur the development of the Macau tourism market.
In the first 10 months of 2022, the number of visitors to Macau declined by 18.7 per cent year-on-year to 4.94 million, the latest official data said.
