Pereira Coutinho against ‘mass tourism’

Lawmaker José Pereira Coutinho says many residents are concerned with the “mass tourism” over the past few months, calling on the government to rethink tourism promotion and consider the type and number of tourists that Macau can sustain without damaging the life of local residents.

The lawmaker expressed these thoughts during the period before the agenda of Wednesday’s session of the Legislative Assembly.

In a spoken inquiry, Pereira Coutinho claimed that his office has received many complaints from residents concerned with the tourism capacity of Macau and the adverse effects of over-tourism.

“In recent times, our office has been receiving many opinions and complaints from residents regarding the uncontrolled increase in the number of tourists concentrated in certain tourist areas with a high population concentration resulting in ‘mass tourism’ or ‘over-tourism’ and causing saturation and degradation of public spaces and affecting the quality of life of residents,” he said, adding, “after all, how many more tourists can this small city receive without affecting the quality of life of its residents, causing degradation at the places visited, increasing of criminality (particularly related [to] usury and currency exchange), increase in noise pollution and overcrowding in public transport?”

The lawmaker cited official figures to note that, in the first half of this year, when Macau was visited by 16 million tourists, only around 1 million, or 7.3%, were foreign visitors, hinting that the policies from the central government focusing on visitors from abroad are not being followed, and, instead, Macau is continuing to focus on mass group tourism from the mainland.

At the same inquiry, the lawmaker also noted the need to improve the service and competitiveness of the Macau International Airport (MIA), noting it is the “main tool to attract more foreign tourists.”

To achieve this goal, Pereira Coutinho said it will be necessary to “eliminate the monopoly on air routes, [as well as] the protectionism of flight schedules (slots) and airport taxes, ground services, and introducing cheaper and more attractive airfares, etc.”

Beyond the “current limitations,” he also said it was “imperative to expand and modernize the airport with investment in infrastructure such as the construction of an additional runway and the updating and modernization of equipment to increase the operational capacity.”

Although criticizing over-tourism, the lawmakers noted that “there is no doubt that tourism is considered one of the largest industries in the world, registering great growth annually and will continue to grow further in the future. But this growth must be a healthy one with a focus on the sustainability of public transport (buses and taxis) with the fundamental interests of residents and tourists in terms of travel being a priority.”

He remarked that is important for the authorities to evaluate and take into account the opinions of residents when defining a tourism strategy for Macau noting, “whatever tourism strategy is adopted for Macau, it must be a clear and well-defined strategy for the sake of the interests of residents, especially the interests of residents of the most affected areas, which must never be ignored, but on the contrary, residents must be previously consulted about what they want for their locations,” remarking that only in this way will tourism be able to be sustainable and take into account the interests of locals and visitors.

The topic of over-tourism has been recently on the agenda with several cities, mostly in Europe, taking measures to reduce the impacts of mass tourism including Venice, Capri, Rome, Sardinia, and Florence (in Italy); Athens, Santorini, and Mikonos (in Greece); Hallstatt in Austria; Amsterdam, in the Netherlands; Barcelona, Mallorca, Menorca, and Seville (in Spain); Sintra in Portugal, Prague in Czechia and many others.

In Asia, similar measures have been enforced in Okinawa in Japan; Bali in Indonesia, Boracay in the Philippines, and Maya Beach in Thailand.