9th MITE accentuates “Tourism+” concept

At the high-profile opening ceremony of the 9th Macao International Travel (Industry) Expo (MITE) on July 9, leading authorities of both Macau and China announced their commitments to collectively deepen cross-border tourism ties.
As one of the officiating guests, Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong addressed the guests and shared that the MITE plays a principal role as “a bridge across Macau, the mainland and different parts of the world,” enabling tourism-related industries worldwide to forge relationships and explore more business opportunities.
Lei calls on practitioners to capitalize on platforms provided by the MITE to jointly develop more novel and innovative travel offerings — in a bid to gear themselves up for the full resumption of international travel in the future.
Secretary of the Bureau Party Committee and Inspector at Level 1 of the Bureau of International Exchanges and Cooperation of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Man Hongwei, also delivered an opening speech at the event.
He emphasized that the mainland and Macau have long been engaging in close collaboration, and proactively formulating plans to mount hybrid promotional activities. These tactics are designed to give reassurances to today’s travelers during the Covid-19 pandemic era and accelerate the tourism recovery for both regions.

Five focuses of ‘Tourism+’
The MITE, held at The Venetian Macao from July 9 to11, was organized by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, and coordinated by the Macau Travel Agency Association.
The Expo was designed to give prominence to the government’s new hook — the “Tourism+” element. In doing so, the MITE zooms in on five focuses representing the exemplar of the concept.
They included a more consolidated use of cloud technology to host exhibitions via an online-mixes-offline hybrid format. With the help of this, the“ Cloud B2B” period in this year’s MITE was extended from two days to 14 days to provide more time for exhibitors and buyers to connect.
The next focus was an enlarged scale in the exhibition zone of “Macau Street,” with a huge pavilion for local hotels to showcase their products.
Another exhibition highlight featured the “Gastronomy” section, where a demonstration of culinary expertise was incorporated for the first time.
The other two aspects were the heightened promotion of cultural tourism and the city’s distinctive shops.
“The Expo manifests a variety of tourism elements offered by Macau including two of our glamorous calling cards, the World Heritage Site – the “Historic Centre of Macao” and Macau’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy,” Lee said.
The MITE boasted a total of 708 booths, with 394 exhibitors participating this year, including 106 Macau’s exhibitors, 265 exhibitors from the mainland and Taiwan region, and 23 international exhibitors.
The event also attracted 341 buyers. Around 197 were hosted buyers from the mainland and 144 were online buyers worldwide.
“The [Expo] is going to showcase a comprehensive overview of novel tourism products and the resumption of some tourism sites in China to Macau’s tourism practitioners and public,” Man added.
“Through this Expo, we believe the participants and exhibitors can further understand and explore more [business] opportunities and to better complement each other, and unitedly achieve a win-win outcome,” Man stated.
The MGTO has been the steering role to accelerate the Tourism+ concept. The MGTO earlier entered a partnership with one of China’s online travel agencies Ctrip. They co-launched the MGTO’s Official Flagship Store on Ctrip App during the kickoff day of MITE.
In addition, the MGTO also made a huge push of its own initiative, launching the “Incubation Plan for Macao’s KOL in Tourism” on July 11.

Resumption of seven-day validity period for Covid-19 test to revive tourism

The Macau SAR government has mandated the resumption of the 7-day validity period for the Covid-19 test for cross-border commuters and travelers as of midnight on July 10. It is expected to be a boon to speed up the city’s tourism revival, Macao Government Tourism Office’s (MGTO) director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes stated.
Following MITE’s opening ceremony, Fernandes told the press, “The daily tourist arrivals tipped 20,000 in these days. [The tally] is [already] a positive signal for the city’s tourism situation.”
She said that the relaxed cross-border travel measures can be an added catalyst to help advance the daily figures to return to the average of April and May.
Some advisories issued by several Mainland schools suggest their students avoid unnecessary travel. The MGTO director said it will continue to monitor the situation to see whether this may cool down travel intention to visit Macau among Mainland travelers.
Fernandes reaffirmed that Hong Kong is the second-largest source market to Macau, just after China. The MGTO authorities have been actively communicating with Hong Kong’s authorities to ensure they can publicize the necessary travel information towards Hong Kong travelers shortly after the intercity border reopens.
In terms of vaccine passports, she said that the proposal is still being reviewed. HT