Macau government closes Lisbon tourist office

The Macau government has decided to close the Macau Centre for Tourism Promotion, and Information in Lisbon “taking into account the rationalisation of staff and administrative simplification,” the director of the Tourist Office said on Wednesday.

The Centre is a project of the Macau government “whose original intention was set for the short term, but which was extended for many years,” Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes told Lusa.

“Taking into account the rationalisation of staff and administrative simplification of the Macau SAR Government [Macau Special Administrative Region] and the existence of the Macau Economic and Trade Delegation in Lisbon,” it has now been decided to close the Centre, she added, on the sidelines of the press conference on the second phase of the programme “Tours, gastronomy and accommodation for Macau residents.

According to the dispatch of the first chief executive of the Macau SAR, the Macau Tourism Promotion and Information Centre in Portugal was established in 2005, Edmund Ho Hau Wah.

The Macau Government Tourist Office maintains a representation in London and is “a delegation to promote tourism, but not an organ of the Macau SAR Government as [was] the Promotion Centre in Portugal,” he explained.

London “is like the delegations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan,” among others, in which local companies are contracted, or their services acquired “through public tenders, at the international level, to promote the country, so they are not an external organ of the Macau SAR Government,” he said.

At the press conference, Senna Fernandes presented 15 new tourist routes in the city, which are part of the second phase of a programme with varied activities to help the sector and boost community neighbourhoods.

For this second phase, which includes sports, gastronomy, excursions and sea trips, amongst others, the government expects around 100,000 people to participate, he said.

The programme of “Tours, gastronomy and accommodation for Macau residents” began in April and will run until December, with an initial budget of 120 million patacas (€12.5 million).

In the first phase, which ended Monday, “the financial support from the government was 4.8 million patacas (€495,000),” she said.

“A total of 297 tours were conducted on the six routes of the first phase, with a total of 9,445 participants and 8,343 hotel experience packages were sold with the participation of 21,029 people,” she said.

Last Wednesday, Macau announced the 52nd case of Covid-19, on the same day it imposed preventive measures due to the community outbreak recorded in the neighbouring Chinese province of Guangdong, now requiring the display of an ‘online’ health code in most public spaces, including transport, which differentiates by colour (green, yellow and red) the potential risk of contagion.

Guangdong, which has recorded more than 100 local cases since 21 May, is the point of origin responsible for the greatest impact on Macau’s tourism and workforce, particularly in terms of daily border crossings.

The Macau health authorities have also tightened border controls, requiring, for example, 14-day quarantine for those arriving from some districts of Guangzhou and Foshan cities.

The registration of cases in Guangdong is translating into a decrease in the number of visitors to the world’s gambling capital, which showed some signs of recovery after a year in which the absence of tourists hit the territory’s economy hard.