As Macau pivots away from gaming as its chief source of tax revenues, it is exploring sports as a potential tourist draw.
City officials have ordered the city’s Big 6 gaming concessionaires to do their part in the ongoing economic diversification, with the goal of making Macau a worldwide destination for entertainment, culture and technology.
As a condition of their new 10-year gaming concessions, which began January 1, operators agreed to invest at least MOP108.7 billion (US$13.46 billion) in non-gaming activities and marketing to global customers.
In the push for more sports, MGM China will introduce the first MGM Macau Tennis Masters tournament in December. Also next month, Wynn Macau will host a Macau Snooker Masters event.
The Chinese special administrative region (SAR) already has a full calendar of sporting events, according to GGRAsia. In a statement to the news outlet, Galaxy Entertainment Group said it has “supported and participated in close to 100 significant international sports events and activities” over the years.
For 19 years, Galaxy has served as the title sponsor for the Macao International Marathon, and has also sponsored the FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League Macao and FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix “for a total of 14 years.” This year, its roster included the World Table Tennis Champions Macao tournament.
And all the city’s casino operators have sponsored the renowned Macau Grand Prix motorsport meet, which typically runs in the fall.
Even so, Ubaldino Couto, assistant professor at the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM), told GGRAsia the Chinese city will have to find its place in an already crowded marketplace.
“The challenge is to identify a niche, both in terms of the sport and the event associated with it, as well as support from corporations, governments and communities.” As part of IFTM’s School of Hospitality Management, he added, “It’s not easy to develop a sports event into something significant that brings in… benefits for and from tourism.”
The event must attract world-class competitors “as well as spectators to come and cheer for their teams.”
Research published by Vassilios Ziakas and Donald Getz in the academic journal Tourism Management said, “The emergence of event portfolios represents a recent paradigm shift in the way cities and regions manage events.
“Rather than focusing on single large-scale events, attention is geared towards developing an array of periodic and/or one-off events that through synergistic effects can yield cumulative outcomes and returns.”
To become a true sports destination, Couto said Macau must do more than schedule activities, but “align (them) with the existing resources in the destination.”
As a new event “builds momentum, it becomes intertwined with the destination—just like the Macau Grand Prix—attracting corporate interest, support from the government and a fanbase of spectators both locally, from the region and internationally,” he said.
The Macau Sports Bureau said the government recognizes the need to “provide channels to assist organizations, companies or individuals in participating in such projects, and to spread information to the integrated tourism and leisure companies for investment consideration.
“Therefore, a referral mechanism for cultural and sports project proposals has been established to provide more opportunities and social resources to the local industries.”
