Macau Had Record 22 Million Visitors in 2006
Written on January 18, 2007 by admin
As predicted Macau again reached another record with 22 million people visiting the tiny southern Chinese territory’s booming casinos in 2006. Not to forget that the Grand Prix of Macau also attracted a record number of visitors!. This represents an increase of 17% against 2005, when 17.8 million people visited Macau. During this year 2007, Macau is expecting another 10% increase, bringing it up to 24.5 million visitors.
The growing Macau population of 504,000 thousand received about 12 million tourists from mainland China and 9.2 million fro other parts in Asia. One interesting fact is that the number of Western visitors does not seem to be increasing, so it looks like that a lot more work needs to be done by the likes of Sheldon Adelson, James Packer and Steve Wynn to attract them to Macau.
Altogether the visitors spent a whopping US$21 billion mostly on gambling, accommodation, restaurants and drinks, which equates to about US$1,000 per visitor. Macau last year overtook Las Vegas becoming the world’s most profitable casino destination.
According to the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Mr Chui Sai On, “The tourism industry in Macau is in a phase of rapid growth,” adding that, we are aware of the challenges ahead, including the shortage of manpower,” Chui added.
He also said that the government was concerned about the city’s labour crunch, which has forced casinos to hire staff from overseas, much to the anger of unions, who have taken to the streets in protest.
“We have commissioned a report from our local tourism institute to find out just what the labour needs will be in the coming years,” he said. “The government has already said there will be new import labour policies to address this problem.”
The Secretary also said that from January the capital cities of the provinces of Hebei, Jilin, Anhui, Henan and Hubei would be part of the individual visa system for their residents traveling to the special administrative region (SAR).
The population of the 49 cities of the mainland that are part of the individual visa system for visiting Macau totals over 260 million people.
Tourism is Macau’s principle source of income, accounting directly and indirectly for about 80 per cent of the economy, according to economists. It now is a fact that tax revenue from gaming alone is sufficient to cover the city’s $2.29 billion annual budget.
Chinese tourists lead the charge into Macau, with arrivals up 14.5 percent on 2005, boosted by a further relaxation of travel restrictions on the mainland.
Macau Government Tourism Office director Joao Manuel Costa Antunes said his organization was keen to develop the industry and this year would promote the city’s business travel sector, particularly the meetings and incentives (MICE) market.
Growth in Macau is expected to continue in double-digit figures for years to come, according to a report by credit ratings agency Standard and Poor’s, which said the city’s fundamentals were strong.
It said that as long as earnings growth continued at current levels, the city’s casinos would be raking in more than all of Las Vegas’ within three to four years.
At the end of 2006 Macau had 83 hotels with 13,000 rooms, another 20 plus hotels are under construction and by 2010 Macau is expected to have about 40,000 hotel rooms.
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