Wine sector calls for gov’t push to grow city into F&B hub

Filipe Cunha Santos

Macau’s wine market has come a long way from its historically Portuguese origins to a reciprocal sector that’s growing with the gaming industry. Now amid the inevitable trend of the city’s economic diversification, the sector is hoping for a big push from the government that can expedite its growth beyond the casino resorts.
“The market is open but there are no exhibitions, no fairs or no organizations to do anything in this sector. There’re two or three [trade fairs] organized by the government, but not specifically given for food and wine,” said Filipe Cunha Santos, the Wine Society of Macau president.
The industry expert told the Times that, “at the moment, there are only local distributors that deal directly with the hotels and restaurants in the casinos.”
“With business to business [events], we can attract distributors coming from all over the world to compete in this market and the China market,” he stressed.
As the city’s economic growth is gradually shifting from servicing high rollers to mass consumers, further development of the food and beverage (F&B) industry is also pointing to a potential mass that favors a bigger variety of products at competitive prices.
“F&B fits very well with Macau’s strategy of being an entertainment center,” stressed the president. “But frankly speaking, I don’t see any policy or efforts yet from the government in this field.”
According to Mr Santos, Macau has a historically Portuguese wine market with Portuguese products provided all around town. Especially in the last decade, wine imports of have been increasing along with the booming casinos.
“Mostly the mainland visitors like French wine. Now besides the French wines sold at the casinos, we have wines from everywhere ranging from Italy, Australia to South Africa,” he said.
“Macau has been seen by many wine importers and merchants now as an important market. Now we have much more distributors that are international houses in Asia, so we have actually a bigger competition in the market, which is good for the consumers,” he explained.
Industry professionals further suggest that Macau could develop into an F&B hub, if only the government decided to support the idea with policies and resources.
“We have the conditions, if the government really wants to invest in this. It’s a question of strategy. Here the food and wine promotion is basically left to the private companies; the government is not really supporting in any big trade fairs,” said Mr Santos.
Currently, the only local event dedicated to wine is the fledging Wine and Dine Festival organized by the Wine Society that has been held annually at the Venetian Macao resort’s outdoor lagoon.
According to the organizer, last year in its second edition, the event reached its expected attendance of 20,000 admissions during the four-day period. This year from March 4 to 8, it aims to attract 15 percent more visitors with more booths, more delicacies and an emphasis on family elements.
“The festival is now a firm favorite and one of our signature annual events,” stated Brett Ingram, the Venetian Macao’s event management executive, at a press conference held yesterday.
Despite its initial success, the organizer acknowledged that the event is not yet mature in terms of scale, sponsorship funds and profit, compared to the wine and dine festivals held in the neighboring city of Hong Kong.
“Comparing this to similar festivals, the Macau edition is still not mature enough. So during the course of four or five days, the revenues are not that attractive,” said the festival’s producer, Bruno Simões. “Some of the exhibitors have said the other festivals are more very profitable, comparatively.”
“We are doing business to consumer, but we don’t have resources to do business to business here,” said Santos. “Here obviously it’s a limited space. In Hong Kong the venue is probably forty to fifty times bigger than us. So instead of 30,000 visitors, they have close to a million visitors for the full time of the event,” he added.
“There is a big event like this in Hong Kong, and its government really puts a lot of effort in it. HK has even created a governmental department dedicated to the wine business, which not only organizes the festival but also certifies the transportation and the quality of wine. So they have actually put together a strategy for HK to become a wine hub,” he explained.
“To reach the same level as HK’s festival, we need the government to organize this or at least sponsor at a much higher level. That’s basically the reason,” he added.