The majority of the visitors came from Mainland China and Hong Kong, which accounted for 57.7% and 27.4% of the total respectively. Among the Mainland visitors, 43.3% (678,822) travelled to Macao under the Individual Visit Scheme.

In the first quarter of 2008, visitor arrivals totalled 7,506,309, up by 17.9% over the same quarter of 2007. Visitors from Mainland China rose by 22.6% to 4,385,684; concurrently, those from Hong Kong and Southeast Asia increased by 3.3% and 63.3% respectively. Furthermore, same-day visitors made up 52.6% of the total arrivals, at 3,951,571.

Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by sea went up by 10.9% over the first quarter of 2007 to 2,386,943. Among them, 2,164,981 arrived at the Outer Harbour (+8.1%), with 57.6% from Hong Kong and 23.5% from Mainland China.

Visitor arrivals by land increased by 21.4% to 4,704,257. Visitors arriving through the Border Gate rose by 14.8% to 4,448,120 and the majority were visitors from Mainland China (79.1%) and Hong Kong (14.6%).

In addition, visitor arrivals by air stood at 415,109, up by 21.3% over the first quarter of 2007. Visitors arriving at the Macao International Airport grew by 20.5% to 408,094 and those from Taiwan, China (35.0%), Southeast Asia (28.8%) and Mainland China (22.1%) were the major users.

Source :: Macao Statistics and Census Service

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In 2007, the number of Macao residents travelled in package tours dropped by 22% over 2006 to 212,107 and those travelled under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies increased by 4% to 386,927.

The opening of 3 new hotels in 2007 increased the availability of guest rooms by 24% to 16,148. While the number of hotel guests jumped by 23% year-on-year to 5,739,734, the average hotel occupancy rate rose by 5.0 percentage points to 77.2%. The average length of stay of hotel guests was 1.36 nights, an increase of 0.15 night compared with 2006.

Per-capita spending of visitors was US$204 in 2007, up by 2% over 2006, of which Mainland visitors had the highest per-capita spending of US$308.

Per-capita non-shopping spending (excluding gaming expenses) of visitors amounted to US$118, up by 10% over 2006, with that of the Mainland visitors leading at US$144. Expenses on accommodation and food & beverage took up 42% and 38% respectively of the per-capita non-shopping spending.

Per-capita shopping spending of visitors posted a 7% decrease over 2006 to US$86, with that of Mainland visitors leading at US$241. Spending on local food products (29% of the total shopping spending), clothing (16%) and jewellery/watches (16%) took the largest shares.

Per-diem spending of visitors went down by 2% over 2006 to US$182; visitors from Mainland China had the highest per-diem spending of US$300. The average length of stay (1.1 days) of visitors was the same as 2006; the respective average for tourists and same-day visitors was 1.6 days and 0.2 day.

Source :: Government Information Bureau of the MSAR

• Visitor Arrivals in 2006 Up by 18% Over 2005
• Macau Visitors Spending in 2006 Up By 6%
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• Package Tours And Hotel Occupancy Up for February 2007

Fei Hongjun, general manager of Air Macau said that this additional service will be helpful for development of business, trade and tourism of Macau and Beijing and will provide more options for tourists during the 2008 Olympic Games.

The additional daily flight will leave from Macau at 18:45 and arrive at Beijing at 22:00; the return flight will leave Beijing at 10:00, arriving at Macau at 13:25.

With the fast growth of Macau’s tourism industry, the route from Macau to Beijing is operating under favorable conditions. In 2007, the route reached an average occupancy rate of 80% and the annual occupancy rate of Business Class is 85%. According to local media, about 90% of passengers on this route are business travelers and leisure tourists visiting for sightseeing.

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In January 2008, the number of Macao residents traveling in package tours rose by 27.7% year-on-year to 13,536. Mainland China, Japan and Thailand were the three most popular tour itineraries, which accounted for 55.2%, 17.6% and 7.5% of the total respectively.

Meanwhile, 33,057 residents traveled under individual arrangements using services provided by travel agencies, up notably by 40.0% over January 2007. Hong Kong (54.5%), Mainland China (23.7%) and Taiwan, China (6.3%) were the major destinations.

Source :: Statistics and Census Service

• Macau Package Tours Hotel Occupancy Rates Up
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The campaign started just days after officials from the Macau tourism bureau came to Beijing on Saturday to report a dispute between mainland tourists and Macau tour guides and police to the National Tourism Administration.

Mainland travelers will receive a reply within 12 days for possible compensation or to exchange or return purchases after their home commercial and industrial supervision bodies delivered complaints to counterparts in Macau, Beijing News reported today.

The campaign was launched by the Chamber of Tourism, a body under the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and the Consumer Council of the Macau Special Administration Region yesterday, the report said.

About 1,300 shops across Macau have been offered the title of “Honest Shop” to assure consumers that they are trustworthy, said Alexander Ho, President of the Executive Committee of the council.

Residents in Shanghai and Beijing have already been offered access to report unpleasant experiences or scams while in Hong Kong and Macau to home authorities. They can also file complaints to tourism watchdogs in the two special administration regions, the report said.

Travel authorities in Macau have been busy trying to limit the damage to its image among mainlanders after Macau Daily News reported on December 6 that riot police had been sent in to calm a furious dispute between 126 mainland tourists and their Macau tour guides.

The mainland tourists, from Tangshan City, Hebei Province, accused the guides of trying to force them to pay for activities not on the schedule and threatening to abandon them without food or accommodation.

A fist-fight started between the tourists and the tour guides. It eventually involved about 30 riot police, who were brought in to calm the eight-hour dispute, according to previous reports.

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The organizers of the convention, the Asia Pacific Financial Services Association (APFinSA), have chosen Macau to host its annual gathering in the spring of 2009, after a site inspection, which was coordinated by the Macau Business Tourism Centre.

The announcement was made today at the opening of a Macau Government Tourist Office seminar on business tourism, where the chairman of the Singapore-based Convention Bureau of APFinSA, Abdul Sani Abdul Kudus, the organizer of the convention, is one of the guest speakers.

Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) director, Joa~o Manuel Costa Antunes, said that the news is a good start for the Macau Business Tourism Centre.

“Macau is honored to be chosen to host such a prestigious event that has been rotating throughout the Asia-Pacific,” he said.

“This is one of the largest conventions being held every year in the Asian region - it is a very big win”, Costa Antunes pointed out, “and its impacts will be felt all over the city.”

The event is expected to attract between 8,000 — 10,000 delegates in Macau in April of 2009.

APFinSA was formed in September 1991 when a total of 11 member financial services associations from 11 countries started their 1st convention in Singapore with more than 5,000 delegates. Since then, the attendance has swelled to over 10,000 when the meeting was held in Malaysia in 2005. The meeting that held in Taipei this year with the attendance of 9,000.

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Miss Asia Pageant 2006 winner Daryna Shevchenko poses after winning the Miss Asia Pageant in Macau, Monday, Oct. 30, 2006.

I am sure that there will be many sexy croupiers around as possible Miss Macau candidates and the future Macau Tourism ambassador role. Macau’s old hand Dr. Stanley Ho used to hold the Miss Macau pageants in one of his casinos, and really as one of Macau’s most famous womanizer, it would be great if he could organize it once again!

And the beauty queens love visiting Macau!

And last but least there is the famous Miss Macau restaurant, its one of the restaurants to experience Macanese and Portuguese cuisine.

It is also great to have a look at the pictures on the wall of the restaurant founders four beautiful daughters who were all crowned “Miss Macau,” thus earning the family a place in the Guinness Book of records. Now how many families in the world can claim that! Mind you would love to see those pictures!
Miss Macau is one of those Macau restaurants that understands service. They offer complimentary pickup from your hotel or the Ferry Terminal, within 15 minutes of your reservation. Don’t visit this quintessential Macau restaurant without trying the Portuguese Green Soup, Codfish Croquettes or Curry Crab.

Also according to Wikipedia we also had a Miss Macao seaplane!

Miss Macao was a Catalina seaplane, owned by Cathay Pacific and in 1948 became the victim of the first hjiacking of a commercial liner.

The Miss Macao was on a routine flight from Macau to Hong Kong. She was hijacked a few minutes after take off by four men, carrying guns, one of who demanded that the pilot surrender the controls. The pilot refused and was shot. As the pilot collapsed onto the flight controls the plane went into an uncontrolled dive and crashed into the sea. 26 of the 27 people aboard died in the crash, the only survivor being the leader of the hijackers. The motives of the hijackers aren’t known for sure. They may have been Chinese bandits, with an economic rather than political motive.

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The announcement was made by Edmund HO at the end of an official visit to Malaysia where he met with the country’s prime minister and Finance Minister, Seri Abdullah Bin Hj Ahmad Badawi and the Foreign Relations and Tourism Minister, Seri Syed Hamid Albar, with whom he discussed issues related to bilateral cooperation, particularly in the area of tourism.

Ho, who is currently in Singapore on the last leg of his tour of southeast Asia, which also took him to Thailand and Malaysia, also said that he was “very satisfied with the interest shown by Malaysian businesspeople in investing in Macau.”

IN Kuala Lumpur, Ho attended the opening of the Seminar on Investment and Trade between Macau and Malaysia.

The Malaysian deputy Trade and Industry Minister during the seminar called for joint ventures to be set up between Malaysian and Macau businesspeople in order to take advantage of opportunities provided by both governments for expansion into both Asean and the Pearl River Delta.

“Malaysia is well-placed to offer the Macau business community a platform for establishing and expanding links with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations),” a market with 560 million people with a combined GDP of US$850 billion, said Yb Ng Lip Yong.

Macau’s Secretary for the Economy, Francis Tam said that the existing opportunities in economic cooperation and noted that in 2006 bilateral trade has risen 14 percent against 2005 and reached US$55 million.

A cooperation memorandum for the tourism sector signed between Macau and Malaysia outlines that the two sides “will make efforts to exchange delegations and experiences in the area of tourism management and promotion, encouraging taking part in fairs (…) as well as promoting the joint study of programs for developing tourist packages, medical tourism, business tourism, amongst others.”

Costa Antunes, who is responsible for the Tourism Services Directorate in Macau noted that “the Southeast Asian market is of great importance to Macau. The Directorate has opened a series of representations in this region of the world, which have made great efforts to promote Macau tourism, with very positive results.”

Malaysia became the fifth-largest source of tourists to Macau in 2006. Over 200,000 visitors from Malaysia visited Macau in 2006, an annual rise of 106 percent. The first two months of 2007 saw a rise of 93 percent in visitors from Malaysia, totaling over 40,000 people.

Direct flights between Kuala Lumpur and Macau run by low cost airline Air Asia have boosted tourism between the two cities.

Source

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Director of MGTO Mr Joa~o Manuel Costa Antunes and Director General of MTPB Dato’ Mirza Mohammad Taiyab, signed the MOU at the opening ceremony of the Malaysia-Macau Economic Cooperation Seminar, held today (April 12) at Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur.

The MOU states that the two parties will exchange delegations to share experiences in the fields of tourism development and management and tourism promotion. The Parties will encourage tourism businesses of the two places to establish business contacts and will participate in tourism fairs, exhibitions and the like hosted by one or both Parties, while at the same time, undertake study of joint tourism programs in the fields of advertising, development of tour packages, health tourism and homestay programs, promotion and development of Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism.

Other activities will include the exchange of information on tourism market, experience on market researches and co-organize opportunities for foreign agencies and mass media representatives to introduce the tourism potentials of Macau and Malaysia.

Malaysia became the 5th largest source market of Macau in 2006. Last year, Macau welcomed over 200,000 Malaysian visitors, a remarkable growth of 106 percent over the previous year. The first two months of 2007 saw another significant growth of 93%, with over 40,000 arrivals from Malaysia.

“Macau attaches great importance to the Southeast Asian market, and MGTO has set up representation offices which have spared no effort to promote Macau tourism and have made notable achievements in a number of Southeast Asian countries. The signing of the MOU between MGTO and MTPB will surely bring the tourism promotion and cooperation between Macau and Malaysia a step further to boost the tourism development of the two places.” said Mr. Antunes, Director of MGTO.

“The introduction of direct flights between Kuala Lumpur and Macau by AirAsia will encourage more visitors from Macau and the surrounding areas to visit Malaysia. Over the years, the number of visitors from the region has grown substantially. Hence, I am confident that this joint cooperation will boost development of tourism and air services in both countries.” said Dato’ Mirza, Director General of MTPB.

Macau Government Tourist Office, a government body, plays the vital role to promote tourism of Macau and co-ordinates related activities and services within the local tourism industry. Its function also includes assisting the formulation and implementation of local tourism policies and issuing tourism related licences. In keeping with Macau’s development strategy, MGTO will continue to devote itself to promote Macau as a tourism, gaming, entertainment, meetings, exhibitions and events destination through its network of 17 representatives around the world.

Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board’s activities are designed to stimulate Malaysian tourism and tourism-related industries. They also develop domestic tourism and enhance Malaysia’s share of the market for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE). This helps promote new investments in the country while providing increased employment opportunities. The growth of tourism in Malaysia will contribute positively to the country’s economic development and the quality of life for the people.

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Speaking to journalists at the end of a meeting to analyze the sector, Costa Antunes said that in the first two months of the year, Macau had received over 4 million visitors or around 20 percent more than in the same year-ago period.
In 2006 Macau had 21.98 million visitors, as compared with 18.7 million in 2005.
Strong growth of the Macau tourism market, which has seen its number of visitors triple since its administration was handed back to China by Portugal in December 1999, has been driven by the higher spending power of Chinese tourists.

The opening of new entertainment areas in casinos is also attracting new visitors and interest from several tourist markets.
Costa Antunes said that the local authorities were focused on boosting convention and exhibition tourism by making use of new facilities linked to the gaming sector and 2007 would be the first year of Macau’s promotion as a meeting city.

Source | MacauHub

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