{"id":27738,"date":"2022-03-02T09:24:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T12:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=27738"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:51:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T13:51:49","slug":"melco-ceo-pessimistic-about-chinese-border-reopening-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/melco-ceo-pessimistic-about-chinese-border-reopening-soon","title":{"rendered":"Melco CEO pessimistic about Chinese border reopening soon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lawrence Ho, Melco Resorts&#8217; CEO, has said he doesn&#8217;t expect China to open its borders this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- Sharing the group\u2019s latest financial report,<strong>\u00a0Melco Resorts CEO, Lawrence Ho<\/strong>, said China is unlikely to reopen its borders soon. He said visits to Macau will remain low as long as the zero-coronavirus policy remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ho stated: &#8220;Even recently we\u2019ve seen how certain provinces view Macau as being so close to Hong Kong and therefore the Covid-19 outbreak in Hong Kong somehow would affect Macau, so honestly I don\u2019t have a lot of hope that group tours or eVisas are going to be normalized before the Hong Kong-China corridor, meaning the Hong Kong-Macau corridor will be open.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last November,\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-expects-up-to-10-million-visitors-in-2022\" target=\"_blank\">the MGTO<\/a>\u00a0said the city could receive up to 10 million visitors in 2022 if Macau finally resumes the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-continues-negotiating-with-mainland-china-on-e-visas\" target=\"_blank\">e-visa programme with China<\/a>\u00a0and reopens borders with Hong Kong. <strong>Group tourist visas have been suspended since 2020<\/strong>, while the individual visa process now still allows online applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ho noted that Melco&#8217;s gaming volume did increase year-on-year during the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-chinese-new-year-ggr-up-60-year-on-year\" target=\"_blank\">Chinese New Year holiday<\/a> and carried over into the weeks after the holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawrence Ho, Melco Resorts&#8217; CEO, has said he doesn&#8217;t expect China to open its borders this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":25802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Melco Resorts CEO Lawrence Ho indicates that China's stringent zero-COVID policy will likely prevent the reopening of borders and normalization of group tours and eVisas to Macau this year. This outlook suggests continued low visitor volumes, despite a year-on-year increase in Melco's gaming volume during the Chinese New Year period. The CEO's statement contrasts with earlier projections for Macau's visitor recovery.","focusai_entities":"Lawrence Ho, Melco Resorts, MGTO","focusai_location":"China, Macau, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.85), regulator (0.75), supplier_vendor (0.7)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Macau Border Reopening Impact","query":"What are the projected GGR implications for Macau's integrated resorts if China's zero-COVID policy and border restrictions persist through H2 2022, and how might operators adjust their capital expenditure and operational strategies?"},{"label":"Melco Resorts Strategy","query":"How is Melco Resorts adapting its non-gaming revenue streams and regional expansion strategies to mitigate the prolonged impact of restricted visitation to Macau?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-27738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27738"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27754,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27738\/revisions\/27754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}