Gov’t promotion for mainland tourists starts today

The government’s promotional scheme to encourage visitors to travel to Macau starts today. Under the scheme, mainland tourists may follow the Macau government’s accounts on two mainland social media platforms to participate in two separate lucky draws to win hotel accommodations and flight privileges.
When booking a hotel stay in Macau, winners will be entitled to a price deduction of up to 500 yuan. .
Once in Macau, they can get e-goodie bags on mainland social media app WeChat, which can only be redeemed by spending. The government hopes this will encourage repeat consumption.
The measure comes as visitation to Macau has largely disappointed since visa restrictions began to be eased last month.
Zhuhai began reissuing tourist visas for Macau on August 12, before the policy was rolled out across Guangdong Province last week. China is expected to reinstate tourist visas in the rest of mainland China on September 23, just in time for the popular Golden Week holiday in the first week of October.
According to data released by the Public Security Police Force yesterday, the number of visitors in Macau last weekend was mostly unchanged from a week earlier. The SAR recorded between 9,000 and 10,000 visitor entries on both Saturday and Sunday.
The total number of border crossings on these days amounted to 263,500 and 226,500 respectively, indicating that residents and non-local workers continue to make use of border crossing services. DB/AL