Visitors entering Macau in the first two days of the May 1 holidays, informally called “May 1 Golden Week,” have far surpassed predictions from the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) of a daily average of 70,000 people over the five days.
On the first day (Saturday, April 29), the border posts recorded a record-high of 109,196 visitor entries. The previous single-day record this year was on March 18, when 96,011 visitors arrived in Macau.
The figure even surpassed (for the time being) the hotel and tourism industry’s forecast of 90,000 daily arrivals, a more optimistic forecast than the MGTO’s.
Yesterday saw a new record-high, with 133,911 visitors entering Macau.
Due to the tourist influx to landmark areas Sunday, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) began enforcing several crowd-control measures, starting at 2:30 p.m.
These included enforcing a single direction of pedestrian traffic, limiting traffic access and converting some streets to temporary pedestrian-only zones in some parts of the historical center around the Ruins of Saint Paul’s and other major tourist areas.
protecting tourists from scams
Partnering with the Consumer Council, the MGTO has deployed staff to inspect shops and tourism operators to ensure that the many tourists arriving in Macau are not scammed.
Inspectors are investigating the prices and services of various economic sectors to ensure tourists’ rights are not overlooked in the pursuit of higher profits.
The Judiciary Police (PJ) has also issued a social media statement warning tourists about false advertising offering food and accommodation package deals at a discounted price.
The PJ has warned people this is a fraud and advised them to pay attention while acquiring this kind of product from unknown sources.
According to the PJ, the scammers’ page is impersonating an existing travel agency and posting multiple fraudulent advertisements for the purposes of collecting people’s data, including credit card information, which is then used to unlawfully collect money from victims.
A local hoteliers’ association has discussed with its members the need to not exaggerate hotel rates over this period, to keep the prices under control and to allow tourists to stay longer. Still, according to the same association, hotel prices have risen by at least 30% for the May 1 holidays.
F&B sector struggling due to low salaries
While the lack of manpower in the hospitality and food and beverage (F&B) sector is not new, the sector’s most representative association says F&B establishments will continue to struggle as it becomes very difficult and almost impossible to recruit workers even from the mainland, since current Macau salaries are almost equivalent to those in the mainland.
According to the vice chairman of the council at The United Association of Food and Beverage Merchants of Macau (UAFBMM), Fong Kin Fu, this is the current situation, which is unlikely to change.
In an interview with the Chinese channel of TDM, Fong also explained that, due to the expected influx of tourists, most of the F&B establishments had to cancel their workers’ rest days and also had to negotiate with them to work overtime during this period. Some are also hiring more part-time workers to face this week’s increased demand.
China reports record railway trips on first day of May Day holiday
Railway trips in China hit a record high on Saturday, the first day of the five-day May Day holiday, data from the national railway operator shows. A total of 12,064 trains were in operation on Saturday, handling 19.66 million passenger trips, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway).
The group expected to see about 18 million railway passenger trips and 11,217 trains in operation yesterday.
This year’s May Day holiday runs from April 29 to May 3.
The country also reports strong demand for travel during this period.
About 120 million domestic trips are expected to be made by Chinese railway passengers from April 27 to May 4 around the May Day holiday, earlier data shows.
A separate forecast by the Ministry of Transport projected that the total number of passenger trips on the first day of the holiday would hit 56.99 million, an increase of 151.8% from the same day of last year.
Road trips were expected to surge by 98.8% to 34.5 million, while air trips would rocket by 441.8% to 2.04 million, with passenger volume by ship rising by 86.2% to 950,000.
Highway passenger car flow is expected to grow by 120.03% to 56.35 million units. MDT/Agencies
