Macao Well Poised for Inland Tourist Flocks

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 ◆ Macao Well Poised for Inland Tourist Flocks

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) is ready to play host to ever-growing influx of tourists from China's inland -- now the second-largest visitor source for Macao.

The SAR has shortlisted 80 tourist services with good reputation, out of 100 in total, as agencies entitled to receive inland tourists, Fernando Chui Sai On, secretary for social affairs and culture, told a panel of reporters recently.

The Macao Government Tourist Office has submitted their names and files to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) for scrutiny and approval, expecting the result to come out soon.

Once a travel service breaches local rules, the CNTA's ordinance or the agreement with its inland counterpart in charge of a single tour group, its qualification as an inlander receiver will be called off, Chui warned.

The SAR has been moving to crack down on illegal management in the tourism market by punishing travel agencies that force tourists to go shopping at particular sites and travel services that provide no tour guides or guides with no licenses.

The vast majority of tourist arrivals in Macao are from Hong Kong, China's inland and Taiwan, with those from the inland soaring to roughly 30 percent of the total, and the SAR is counting on the tourism and gambling business to lead a sustained economic recovery.

Many inland tourists flock to Macao from October to March, a period with fine weather in the south China city, as well as the three week-long holidays around the Labor Day on May 1, the National Day on October 1 and the Spring Festival in January or February.

With more money in their pockets, a daily average of 8,600 interior tourists visited Macao over this year's Labor Day holiday, a 5 percent rise over the daily average for 2001, statistics show.

Local hotels recorded a rarely-seen high occupancy rate -- 87.5percent -- on average from May 1 to 7, surging from 63.8 percent for the first quarter and 62.4 percent for last year. Room charges rose as much as 32 percent from the 2001 average.

Figures also show the inlanders are the most generous group, spending 7.9 billion patacas (nearly one billion U.S. dollars) in Macao last year and contributing 55 percent of the city's tourism revenues.

Director Joao M. Costa Antunes with the tourist office foresees the inland will ultimately go beyond Hong Kong and become Macao's largest tourist provider in an interview with Xinhua.

To address the demand of tourism boom, Macao Institute for Tourism Studies, the only local institution of higher learning for tour guide training, plans to release more than 300 tour guides to the market this year.

And the SAR government is projected to accelerate the construction of tourist facilities and launch more promotions overseas. The Macao Tower, which opened to visitors in February this year, has become a new tourist attraction.