Guangdong removed from Macau’s inbound quarantine list
Authorities have announced that no areas in the neighbouring province of Guangdong will remain on Macau’s inbound quarantine list as of September 21.
Macau.- The Nanhuaxi subdistrict in Haizhu district and the Jianshe subdistrict in Yuexiu district are the latest areas to be removed from Macau’s inbound quarantine list.
The news was announced by Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre, which also reported that more parts of Fujian have been added to its inbound quarantine list due to an outbreak of Covid-19 Delta variant cases there.
A few places in Guangzhou had also joined Macau’s quarantine-on-appearance list as of the start of September, following affirmation of various Covid-19 disease cases there.
Mainland China continues to be the only country to have a largely quarantine-free travel bubble with Macau. The province of Guangdong has been the biggest single source of Macau’s central area travellers this year.
According to Macau’s Statistics and Census Service, during the first eight months of the year, Macau welcomed more than 4.66m visitors from mainland China, and 60.6 per cent of them came from Guangdong.
Fujian territory has been the second-biggest source of Macau’s inbound mainland Chinese tourists, but Macau saw only 224,000 visitor arrivals from that region between January to August – 4.8 per cent of the 4.66m tourist arrivals Macau in the eight months.
Macau unlikely to ease travel limits this year, analysts say
According to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd, Macau is unlikely to remove its travel restrictions for people coming from places beyond mainland China before 2022.
However, analysts predicted GGR will start to improve in the fourth quarter. GGR in September could reach about 30 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and 40 per cent in October.
They added: “Longer term, Individual Visit Scheme eVisa, group visa restart, and Hong Kong travel resumption will be necessary to drive gross gaming revenue (GGR) upwards.”
