Lei Wai Nong: City’s tourism industry needs repositioning

Macau’s tourism industry must foster change and improvement, Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lei Wai Nong, said at a parliamentary plenary.

During the long discussion, where even the parliament’s president made his voice heard in seeking a conclusion on the topic, Lei for once again threw out punchlines, as he said, “A past map may not point out future destinations.”

At the same occasion, several lawmakers asked questions related to tourism. For example, lawmakers Wong Kit Cheng and Angela Leong asked about reviving the industry, while Pereira Coutinho asked about Japan’s risk classification on Macau.

In response to these questions, Lei, citing his superintendent, reiterated that the city is not only too homogenous in tourism products, but also in the tourism source market.

Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng, during his last parliament question session in April, blamed the tourism industry for what he considered its excessive focus on Chinese tourists and instructed industry practitioners to attract greater numbers of foreign tourists after Covid-19.

Lei said that he has revisited the tourism arrival figures from 2014 to 2019 and concluded of the total visitors, that the city had welcomed 78% mainland tourists, 18% Hong Kong tourists and the remainder came from other places.

He said tourism industry practitioners should take this “quietness” as an opportunity to consider how the city can become more attractive to non-Chinese tourists.

In fact, some academics have pointed out that Macau’s heavy reception of 40 million tourists a year and having departed somewhat from leisure tourism, the city is no longer attractive to foreign tourists, who usually are more financially ample and tend to explore experiences of higher quality.

As the plenary session transitioned to an adjournment, the parliament’s head made his remarks, describing the topic as so wide that the discussion could be virtually endless. He encouraged fellow lawmakers to not refrain from giving suggestions to the government in the future.

“It seems to me that the oral inquiry session has expanded to study Macau’s drive to transforming into an international tourism destination,” Kou Hoi In, president of the parliament, concluded.

On Commodity prices

During the same plenary meeting, the senior official was also questioned about the stability of commodity prices, with particular focus on consumer gasoline prices.

Prices of consumer gasoline across the city have risen to MOP13.47 at the lowest and MOP15.79 at the highest for unleaded gasoline, and MOP15.49 to MOP15.96 for diesel gasoline, according to data from the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT). Retailers offer privileges to regular customers, however.

Members of the public have made complaints in various arenas that retailers started raising commodity prices even before the latest round of the consumption stimulus scheme, which will commence today, began.

On these questions, Lei blamed global conditions for the price hikes. He reiterated the common knowledge that Macau, being an external-facing economy, requires imported food and other commodities.

Under the Covid-19 pandemic, Lei continued, transport costs have also risen. Alongside impacts from the Russia-Ukraine war, food shortage and other incidents, inflation is nearly unstoppable.

On the matter of controlling gasoline prices, Lei referred to free-market practices and competition theories to note that the government is unable to do much. The justification has been offered for quite some time before this recent plenary.

Lei’s answer infuriated Coutinho, who angrily noted in his follow-up question to the senior official that the EU, also a free market, levies control measures on gasoline prices.

He also complained, together with lawmaker Leong Sun Iok, about the senior official not actually answering to any of the questions that Leong raised in his oral inquiry. “I don’t know how I can follow-up with your response,” Coutinho told Lei.

On accusations that Macau’s gasoline prices are too high, Tai Kin Ip, director of the DSEDT, told irate lawmakers by comparing the prices in Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macau. “The prices in Macau is relatively low,” Tai said.

Regarding control over prices of other commodities, Wong Hong Neng, president of the Consumer Council of Macao (CC), said that the government has been in touch with suppliers to encourage them not to raise prices, an answer which has been used to answer written inquiries previously sent by lawmakers.