Grant Bowie recommends city seek gradual growth

Grant Bowie (front, center), CEO and executive director of MGM China

The CEO and executive director of MGM China, Grant Bowie, has recommended that Macau seek gradual economic growth instead of the rapid development that has marked the last 20 years.

On Friday, Bowie told local media that the past year had been challenging. In the third quarter of 2019, Macau recorded a 4.5% contraction in GDP, which Bowie saw as a “very unlucky situation for Macau.”

The MGM leader foresees growth returning to Macau, but of a more gradual kind.

“I’m positive that the future is going to be very bright,” said Bowie. However, Macau is a more mature market now. “I think that what we need to do is to look for a slow and steady increase rather than a rapid increase. We are looking for some consistency in the future.”

Last week, the head of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) predicted that Macau would suffer a 3% decrease in tourist arrivals in 2020. According to Bowie, any minor downturn in visitors will not accurately reflect on the health of the tourism sector because the city has already become a quality tourism destination.

“We need to focus on the quality of our customers, the length of their stay, the repeat visitation,” Bowie answered when asked about the prediction. “Those are the challenges for us in the future.”

Last year, MGTO conducted a feasibility study on a tourist tax.

Macau is a city of 650,000 people and received about 39.4 million visitors last year, just short of the key 40-million milestone once suggested to be its maximum.

The MGM CEO expressed his understanding of the proposal, which is being considered to try to regulate traffic and reduce some of the inconvenience caused to local residents by the large number of visitors.

“Philosophically, we should be making sure that we have a proposition here in the quality of our customers,” Bowie commented.