Food Festival sees double-digit growth

The annual Macau Food Festival, held by the Sai Van Lake, has seen double-digit growth in visitors and business turnover this year, according to its organizer, the United Association of Food and Beverage Merchants of Macau. Last Saturday, the Festival recorded the largest number of tourists since its opening on November 7. The association’s vice chairman, Mr Lo Kam Kuan, told the Times that the 17-day event is anticipated to achieve “at least a 10 to 15 percent increase” in total business volume from last year.
“This year has seen the biggest turnover of tourists; and for local residents, normally they have no [leisure] places to go in the evening,” he said. He explained that the popular use of instant-messaging has also facilitated the larger turnout, as people tend to invite their friends to come to the Festival via WeChat.
Besides the growth in visitors, the Festival’s food court has been expanded in order to accommodate more vendors. “The participating merchants gave us the feedback that the Food Festival is very helpful to increasing their business and their booths at the Festival are flourishing this year,” said Mr Lo.
This year, the organizer received about 150 entries from local merchants, with 108 of them accepting to join the event, from which 38 percent are new participants. In addition, 25 merchants from Japan’s Kansai region were invited to create a “Japanese Village” in the food court.
“Our aim is to promote local food brands. During these days, local merchants expect to make a name for themselves, so they input a lot of personnel and recourses into the booths, such as managers and chefs,” said Mr Lo.
The organizer acknowledged that, since the venue has been used to its limit, the Festival won’t add more booths. “For previous participants who presented a poor business volume, poor hygienic conditions or poor decoration of their booths, we cancelled their qualification of participation. It’s a fair selection,” he explained.
“Macau’s [Food Festival] is the best, because each booth is subsidized by the government; in other places, participants need to pay the rent of a booth and they set the food at higher prices. It’s a different purpose,” the vice-chairman added.
As for residents’ complaints that the Food Festival doesn’t offer appealing food prices, Mr Lo responded that it has been a question posed every year. “The costs for merchants to operate the booths are high. Most of them are not making much of a profit,” he stressed.
According to Mr Lo, it took a restaurant operator more than MOP 200,000 to set up and decorate its booth, whereas for a small-business vendor, the booth setup normally costs 300 to 500 patacas.
The vice-chairman also acknowledged that he’s noticed some young people mobilizing residents to boycott the Food Festival on the Internet, as they are resentful of lawmaker Chan Chak Mo, who serves as the association’s president.
“I’m absolutely opposed to such mobilization; they are attacking an individual, not considering the Festival itself. I believe they have their own purpose. There are only two or three booths presented by the Future Bright Holdings Ltd [owned by Chan Chak Mo],” responded the vice-chairman.

Environmental concerns at the festival

With the event in its fourteenth year, for the first time the organizer has requested that booths replace plastic utensils with environmentally-friendly dinnerware. To support this initiative, the Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) has provided a subsidy of over MOP 400,000 to the merchants. The DSPA has organized a class for 40 students as part of the festival , to teach them about the importance of reducing waste. Brook Yang