Covid-19 | New cases in neighboring cities affecting tourism, but hopefully not health: Gov’t

The new cases of Covid-19 infections reported over the last few days in the neighboring cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, and Shenzhen are already having an impact on the tourism industry’s recovery, but that impact will hopefully not extend to imperiling the health of residents, government officials said yesterday on the sidelines of the inauguration of the revamped Grand Prix Museum.
Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) director, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, remarked upon the immediate impact of these cases on local visitor numbers.
“Over the last two days, we have noted an immediate drop in visitor arrival figures. Two days ago [on Sunday], the entry number was only 16,000 and yesterday [Monday] it was about 20,000. If we compare [these figures] to the ones registered over the month of May, which was between 25,000 to 30,000 people per day, we can observe the immediacy of the impact,” Senna Fernandes explained, further noting that the solution to keeping the tourist industry moving is to attract visitors from other provinces who can stay longer in Macau.
“Although Guangdong residents account for a large portion of the visitors [to Macau], their average length of stay is very short when compared to other provinces. This is why we are focusing our [promotion] work on other provinces. These are the people that stay between three to five nights,” she added, justifying the recent promotion activities that MGTO has been hosting through the “Macao Weeks” in several provinces in the mainland.
On the same topic, the Chief Executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng, noted that there is a mechanism in force that allows local authorities to immediately enforce a 14-day quarantine period for people arriving from affected areas as soon as an outbreak happens.
“I have complete trust in the Guangdong authorities that they are investigating the cases [of Covid-19] closely and carefully and I am very confident that they will quickly tackle the problem and control the situation,” Ho said. To safeguard everyone, including the people in Macau, he noted that the residents from affected areas of Guangdong province, “now have a yellow health code and this means they cannot go out. So, I think we are protected enough on that front.”
The CE took the opportunity to urge the population to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
“We know that there are more people showing interest [in being vaccinated] now, but I urge them to get the vaccine as soon as possible because while we have been able to secure enough stocks for now, we are not certain about the future. In the future, vaccine stocks might be difficult to secure and guarantee to people, so we better not waste the ones we have now,” the CE remarked.
Ho refuted the idea that the government was planning to make the vaccine mandatory for all civil servants, saying, “We won’t do that. We can’t force anyone. I am making a call for people to get vaccinated but nothing has changed and we cannot force people on such individual and personal decisions.”