Sally Victoria Benson (right), co-founder of “Live and Love Macau”
More than 100 people attended last night’s launch of online lifestyle publication “Live and Love Macau” at the Heart Bar in Ascott Macau.
The co-founders of the local lifestyle magazine, Moscow-born Katya Maia and Australian-born actress Sally Victoria Benson, told the Times that they want to promote Macau as more than just a gaming city. The magazine aims to showcase the best of what the city has to offer in terms of culture and heritage.
“It will be explicitly non-gaming,” stated Maia, who settled in Macau in 2010 and is also the co-founder of what claims to be the MSAR’s first whole food kitchen, ‘Greens Kitchen & Juicery’. “Because that is not our focus. We are focused on [local] lifestyle […] and promoting it primarily to non-Chinese, English-speaking people who live in East Asia, such as in Shanghai or Beijing.”
Maia explained that the project has a dual purpose: the promotion of lifestyle and related issues in the city, and serving as a “go-to destination for all things [related to] Macau.”
“We are trying to promote tourism to English-speaking people, but also to act as a central hub for locals,” said co-founder Sally Benson. “Our general purpose is to have a central resource that is easily accessible to people in Macau and [contains information] that isn’t in guidebooks and [other] websites.”
“We also want to feature people who are doing good things [here in Macau], like setting up a business – but always with a call to action to the outside,” the Australian-born actress, model and producer told the Times.
One such example in the online magazine is a weekly feature that showcases local Macau fashion, dubbed “Streetstyle”. The segment, which began on Instagram, has evolved into a “Sunday Streetstyle Feature” with submissions from both locals and tourists, as well as an interview column.
The government, eager to encourage the promotion of non-gaming tourism in the MSAR, has backed the project under the Young Entrepreneurship Scheme, and has approved its status as a commercial project.
“Macau is a great stop-over for people traveling to Hong Kong – always has been, always will be,” said Katya Maia.
However, while it might now be a convenient stop-over for visitors to Hong Kong, it has not always been so popular with Hong Kong residents, said Benson, who grew up in the MSAR in the 1990s.
“You have to remember that in the 1990s, no one would come from Hong Kong to Macau – there was no reason to. Now people will […] and a weekend in Macau is not cheap anymore!”
“People only know Macau as a gaming city, but that’s not only what it is. I’m not saying that we have the best entertainment yet, but there are things that are worth coming to Macau for,” added Benson.
Maia agreed that there are areas of tourism promotion that could be improved.
“The biggest change we can focus on is an improvement in quality of service, [which] can act as a great base for tourism and lifestyle offerings,” she said. “In my personal experience, I always tip taxi drivers who speak English to me.”
Maia also agreed that infrastructure initiatives such as the airport expansion, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the new harbor could help to drive tourism in Macau. Daniel Beitler
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