{"id":777013450,"date":"2024-02-26T08:26:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T11:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777013450"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:40:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:40:24","slug":"macau-welcomes-expansion-of-chinese-visa-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-welcomes-expansion-of-chinese-visa-programme","title":{"rendered":"Macau welcomes expansion of Chinese visa programme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Xi\u2019an City in Shaanxi Province and Qingdao City in Shandong Province will be added to the individual visa program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- Macau&#8217;s chief executive,\u00a0<strong>Ho Iat Seng<\/strong>, has thanked China&#8217;s central government for its decision to expand the individual visa programme to include Xi\u2019an City in Shaanxi Province and Qingdao City in Shandong Province. Announced by the National Immigration Service, the change is set to commence on March 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The integration of Xi&#8217;an and Qingdao is expected to facilitate easier travel for residents of these cities to Macau and Hong Kong, potentially boosting tourism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ho Iat Seng affirmed the Macau Government&#8217;s commitment to\u00a0<strong>further developing tourist resources and hospitality capacity<\/strong>\u00a0in collaboration with relevant sectors. Efforts will focus on enhancing border entry and exit measures, customs clearance and transit facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The individual visa policy was introduced in 2003. <a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-received-28-million-visitors-in-2023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Macau registered 28m visitor arrivals in 2023<\/a>, with a daily average of circa 77,000 tourists. This figure was equivalent to 70 per cent of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-mgto-targets-33m-visitors-in-2024\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Macau: MGTO targets 33m visitors in 2024<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xi\u2019an City in Shaanxi Province and Qingdao City in Shandong Province will be added to the individual visa program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":25493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"China's central government is expanding its individual visa program to include Xi'an and Qingdao, effective March 6, facilitating travel to Macau and Hong Kong. Macau's Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng, acknowledged the decision, anticipating a boost in tourism and affirming the government's commitment to enhancing hospitality infrastructure and border efficiency to support the increased visitor volume.","focusai_entities":"Ho Iat Seng, National Immigration Service, Macau Government, China's central government","focusai_location":"Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, Macau, Hong Kong, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.75), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (0.98), marketing_crm (0.85), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.98), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Projected GGR Uplift?","query":"What is the projected GGR uplift for Macau's integrated resorts resulting from the inclusion of Xi'an and Qingdao in the individual visa program, and how does this impact consensus estimates?"},{"label":"Hospitality Infrastructure Scaling?","query":"How will Macau's existing hospitality infrastructure and labor market scale to accommodate the anticipated increase in visitor arrivals from these new source cities, and what capital expenditure plans are in place?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-777013450","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\/777013450","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=777013450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777013450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777013472,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777013450\/revisions\/777013472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777013450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777013450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777013450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}