Region’s travel alert system suffering delays

Scheduled to launch in the middle of last year, the redesign of Macau’s outbound travel alert system has been delayed due to the clarification of some legal terms.

According to Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, the scheme is already on its third draft. She added that they have also been revising bilingual translations.

“The main problems were on legal terms and this is the third draft already. We have been reviewing the Portuguese and Chinese versions in order to make the whole document easily understandable,” said Fernandes in a TDM report.

The MGTO director also noted that when the alert is on, it does not necessarily forbid travellers from traveling to a specific country.

Fernandes previously said that the bureau could currently only issue travel alerts as a warning or reminder, since there is no specific legislation for the alerts to have legal effect.

In the first phase, the system will cover all the frequent travel destinations of local residents as well as all Portuguese-speaking countries. The scheme will cover 74 countries in total.

LikeHong Kong, the MSAR’s pending alert scheme willoperate a three-level Outbound Travel Alert system (OTA), comprising a yellow alert (signs of threat), a red alert (significant threat) and a black alert (severe threat).

Once implemented, the travel alert system will be operated under the Crisis Tourism Management Office, which will work with the Monetary Authority of Macao.