Tourism sector hopes for rebound amid staff shortage
With the resuming of quarantine-free travel between Macau and Zhuhai, the travel sector is confident that it would see color in visitor arrivals during the next several months.
“Lots of activities and bigger exhibition activities will be held in the second half of the year; we believe the number of visitors will resume gradually with a more stable pandemic,” said Wong Fai, president of Macau Leisure Tourism Services Innovation Association and Travel Industry Council of Macau.
On Saturday, the number of visitors arriving in Macau was recorded as nearly 17,000, the highest daily visitor record since the resumption of quarantine-free visit to Zhuhai in early August, according to the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
Between August 12 and 18, Macau received a total of 81,798 visitors, a daily average of 11,685, representing an increase of 56% compared to the daily average of 7,490 visitors between August 5 and 11, and a further 3,609% higher than the daily average (315) in July, albeit coming from a low base.
However, according to Wong, they have received information that the mainland authorities are “stricter about [issuing] individual tourist visas to Macau,” Wong said, as cited in a TDM report.
Back in May, a note from Brokerage Bernstein stated that their “latest channel checks have indicated that frequent gamblers to Macau have seen visa issuance denied by China immigration offices.”
Meanwhile, Wong said that travelers hope authorities could resume group travel to Macau and extend the valid period of nucleic acid test (NAT) between Macau and mainland to seven days.
Group visas are currently still halted since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
However, Macao Tourist Guides Union (MTGU) president Lei Man Hou said that the level of number of visitors in the second half of 2022 will probably not reach the number of visitors in pre-pandemic levels, even if the pandemic is stable.
“Many tourist guides have changed careers to part-time food delivery or other essential jobs, so the [lack of employees in the sector] is serious,” Lei pointed out.
According to Lei, there were around 1,000 tourist guides before the pandemic, of which over 70% were aged 40 years or above. In addition, fewer people are applying for jobs in the travel industry because there have been no visitors traveling to Macau during the pandemic, and no need of foreign language tour guides either.
According to statistics from the second quarter of 2022 published by Statistics and Census Service of Macau (DSEC), the number of visitors arriving in Macau totaled 1,588,260 in the second quarter, representing a decrease of 27.5% year-to-year. The number of visitors joining local tour groups in the second quarter declined by 70.8% year-to-year to 6,393, and the number of local tour visitors fell by 35.8%.
Lei suggests the authorities launch more training courses for tourist guides. It is believed that around 700 to 800 tourist guides will choose to work for the industry again with the resumption of the tourist industry.
Director of the MGTO, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, also proposed that the authorities try using the online program “cloud-travel” to stimulate the local travel industry. This program could include proposals that the authorities encourage the Hong Kong travel industry to promote attractions of Macau.
A local tourist guide, who has worked for the travel industry over 10 years, agreed about the benefits of the online program for the MGTO.
“The direction of the online program is good, but it needs cooperation with relevant training courses and the formation of group teams,” said Ding Fang, the local tourist guide.
The guide added that since the age range of local tourist guides is older, there was a possible difficulty for them to try such a web-based training system.
The tourist guide, who requested anonymity, also suggests the government subsidize tourist guides joining the training. Staff Reporter
