A world of difference; The difference is Macau
(China Daily HK Edition)
Updated: 2005-09-27 15:23

Macau has a unique advantage of being a place to meet for centuries. Being one of the oldest encounter points for the East and the West, this feature has been playing an important role of Macau's travel and tourism industry. Macau's cultural identity has evolved for more than 400 years. The city's cosmopolitan flavour is the product of a rich Portuguese culture living in both partnership and fusion with the local Chinese culture.

Last year, the tourism industry of Macau has achieved appreciable growth, with over 16.67 million visitor arrivals to Macau, a surge of 40% over 2003. Among the total visitor arrivals, 9.5 million are Mainland visitors, who accounted for 57% of total visitor arrivals and have recorded a significant growth of 66%.

With the support of the Central Government, the targeted market for tourists from Mainland China was more open, propitiating a clear opportunity for the development of Macau's tourism sector.

Tourism has become an important source of revenue for many countries. The Macau Special Administrative Region government hopes that the expansion of tourism linked to MICE, gaming, entertainment and leisure, will play an increasing role in the development of Macau. Looking forward, large-scale new entertainment facilities, theme hotels, tourism products and supporting facilities are on the mark to commence and are expected to attract more visitors.

On July 15 2005, Macau was proud to take the limelight again when UNESCO announced the inclusion of "The Historic Centre of Macau" on the prestigious World Heritage List. The tourism sector would enforce the unique attractiveness of local cultures, build up high end branding value, and provide quality guarantee of tourism products.

In Macau, the tourism industry is a major contributor to the growth of the economy. Macau tourism has allocated resources in an effective way to achieve the objectives of source market expansion and quality enhancement. The tourism authorities will follow this direction to eventually make Macau an international leisure and MICE destination by striving to develop cultural and leisure tourism resources as well as convention & incentive tourism.

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