MGTO to feature 15 itineraries for local tour scheme

In collaboration with three local tourism associations and the Macao Foundation, the Macao Government Tourism Office’s (MGTO) “Macao Ready Go! Local Tours” scheme scheduled to take place between June 22 and September 30 is set to hold a total of 15 itineraries as part of the campaign.
Each Macau resident will be sponsored with a total of MOP560 to join two tours, with MOP280 allocated to each. The 15 itineraries in the scheme are separated into two categories – six for “Community-based Tours” and nine for “Leisure Tours”. The two-time grants must be used on tours from different categories. If participants signed up for two programs from the same category, only one program will be funded and the participant will need to pay the full price to enjoy another program.
Details on the itinerary can be found on the Facebook Page “Stopover Macao”.
Sightseeing, catering, tour guide services, insurance fees, and the like are already included within those programs. After using up the sponsored funds, residents can pay by themselves to continue joining the tours.
Those itineraries will be further negotiated and changed in order to involve different activities and organizations. Some itineraries will possibly include a series of recreational activities hosted in July.
By hosting the scheme, the Macau government hopes to gradually stimulate Macau’s tourism activities. Relevant data will be collected to evaluate the scheme’s effectiveness, which will serve as a reference for the formulation of tourism promotional strategies and tour route design in the future.
Registration for the scheme starts today.
Meanwhile, visits to Air Macau’s backend operation area may be expanded to welcome adults who are interested in the aviation industry, Wu Keng Kuong, president of the Travel Industry Council of Macau, said yesterday.
One of the 15 itineraries currently offered features a site tour to the backend area of Air Macau. The tour, however, is a parent-child targeted feature and will only include parents with children. In other words, individual adults are not eligible for the visit, even if they are interested in the aviation industry.
When questioned by the Times on that point, the council president said the organizers would consider an expansion.
“The Air Macau tour was only realized with the strong support of the airline company,” Wu explained. “[The tour] is an exclusive arrangement.”
But he added that the suggestion of expanding to other adults is constructive. “I believe we’ll continue our negotiation with Air Macau to determine [whether] further expansion is possible.”
On the other hand, at Monday’s Novel Coronavirus press conference, Vice Director Cheng Wai Tong of the MGTO said that non-residents are also welcome to participate in the local tour, just that they will not receive tour fare subsidies from the government.
In addition, tour guide services will be provided in Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese and English.
As of yesterday, promotional materials were only available in Chinese. When questioned as to why there was a discrepancy, Cheng stressed that the tour scheme targets local residents.
After a brief pause, he reiterated that non-resident workers can also register for the tours, but that they will need to pay the full fee.
Then he deferred to Wu for further explanation. Wu added that due to time constraints, the materials have not yet been translated into English and Portuguese.
On how non-Chinese speakers can register for the tours, since the MGTO vice director reiterated “people who have [travelled] have travel agencies they frequent,” both Cheng and Wu noted that any of the participating travel agencies will suffice.