Severo Portela
The theory in use must be the one about the hypothetical ever-accommodating can of sardines: you squeeze a little and there you go… one more added to the dead school. One wonders how far the overcrowding has to go before “I cannot bear this any longer” goes from an individual or occasional outburst to a collective rage.
Each year since the gaming business entered the fast lane visitors have broken record after record; each year local residents lose some vital space to punters and tourists, and today as gambling revenues spiral downward the City is full of fearless shoppers buying everything coming their way. Zhuhai customs authority estimates that there will be over 2.2 million people crossing the border, or around five per cent more than one year ago.
So…what to expect from the second wave of big properties on the Cotai Strip? The truth is nobody knows for sure, since local authorities through to common observers have all proven unable to produce reliable forecasts. So much so that the filter seems to rely on how the Chinese officials appraise the inwards demand and outwards supply.
In the neighboring SAR of Hong Kong, there have been ugly developments toward mainland visitors. The influx of outsiders, whether shoppers or not, in the already crowded main tourist and commercial spots, gave rise to episodes of bad blood, bad words, sometimes physical, and overall hostility in general, bordering upon xenophobia.
On this side of the Pearl River Delta, the obvious inconvenience brought by the invasion of visitors to the tight streets of old Macau seems to have shifted more to the weight of the cash register’s closing balance. This is a trend… but no one knows at which point the money-making is an illusion. Conservative Legislator Ho Ion Sang not only alerts us to the cumulative resentment among local residents, but also accommodates an unusually positive example from Hong Kong in his line of reasoning. The HKSAR pleads for a tighter filter on its borders, but bases its request, we would say, on an objective evaluation of accommodation and visitor carrying capacity.
In order to dissipate the flow of visitors as much as possible, the MGTO wisely added four more walking routes to the existing four parcours, complemented with a package of measures to offer options to the hordes of tourists/visitors/shoppers other than San Ma Lo. Given the unpredictability of local mood in an environment of an ever increasing number of visitors travelling from the mainland who share with us the same small and beautiful enclave over this brief holiday period, Chief Executive admitted he is kind of worried, but attentive to the situation.
Actually, the Chief Executive has been following, mainly through his team of new Secretaries, a line of truth and dares to assume today’s problems, disregarding yesterday shortcomings; this way, building momentum in the warm-up to the presentation of his 2015 Policy Address in the Legislative Assembly on March 23. From then, Chui Sai On’s second term will be politically wired.
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