Tourism in Macau: over 70,000 discounted flight tickets booked in Q2

The Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) launched the initiative to boost the arrival of international tourists.

Macau.- The Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has reported that over 70,000 reservations for discounted flight tickets for international travellers were recorded in the second quarter following the Macau government’s allocation of MOP235m (US$29.36m) to boost overseas visitation. The tickets were distributed through partnerships with Air Macau and other airlines.

The MGTO provided the figures in response to a query from legislator Ngan Iek Hang about the government’s efforts to attract overseas tourists. Offers with Air included ticket discounts, buy one get one free offers and discounts on multi-destination tickets. Offers with other airlines included limited-time ticket promotions for international travellers departing from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, and North America.

The initiatives were part of a series of incentives to increase visits to the city. The budget was also used for offers on cross-border bus and ferry rides between Macau and Hong Kong, hotel accommodation, dining, entertainment and show tickets. As of the end of June, over 50,000 overseas visitors had taken advantage of the special offers.

According to preliminary data, Macau welcomed 25.94 million tourists in the first nine months of this year. That’s a rise of 30.2 per cent year-on-year and a rebound to 85.9 per cent of the pre-Covid volume in 2019. The count for international tourists reached nearly 1.68 million in the same period, reflecting a 95.2 per cent year-on-year rise but only recovering to 70.8 per cent of the figure from the corresponding period in 2019. In January, the director of the MGTO, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, stated that the city aimed to attract around 3 million foreign visitors this year.

In addition to these special offers, the MGTO highlighted the success of travel roadshows held in six major overseas tourist markets for Macau—Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia—between March and July. These events attracted a cumulative total of over 880,000 attendees and 870 travel industry operators.

The MGTO also added that, through comprehensive tourism promotion efforts, including extensive online and offline ads, participation in international travel expos, roadshows, seminars, and familiarisation trips, their goal is to further optimise Macau’s tourist landscape and expedite the recovery of the tourism industry. In April, Macau’s chief executive, Ho Iat Seng, said that Macau could attract more than 30 million tourists in 2024.