China delivered some potentially grim news to Macau’s Covid-battered gaming and tourism industries in the form of health warnings against traveling to the casino enclave during Chinese New Year.
The 2021 version of the weeklong holiday, the largest annual travel event in China, begins February 11, and has been eagerly anticipated by Macau’s casinos to boost their fortunes after the pandemic largely sealed off the territory from its prime mainland market for much of 2020 and sent the industry’s world-leading gambling revenues into an 80 percent decline.
Visitor arrivals for the year fell from 39 million to less than 6 million, and most of those occurred in January before the pandemic hit.
In a normal year, the CNY holiday is estimated to generate more than 5 percent of the casinos’ aggregate annual win, which topped US$36 billion in 2019.
That was not the case in 2020. The holiday arrived just as the pandemic struck. Travel was dramatically restricted on both sides of the border. Visitation plunged from 1.2 million in 2019 to less than 265,000.
It appears this year will spell more of the same.
It’s hardly encouraging either that at the Macau end of the mainland travel bubble the government is now urging its citizens and Chinese non-resident workers to avoid leaving the territory during the holiday.
“The call is not compulsory,” a Health Bureau official said. “We hope to reduce the risk of transmission within the community. It doesn’t mean that Macau is in an urgent situation, but we want to prepare early to deploy various works and coordinate with different departments and institutions.”
In related news, revisions to Macau’s immigration and residency laws will require the collection of biometric data on all visitors to the city.
A new bill has been approved by the government’s Executive Council aimed at preventing people from entering the territory illegally and/or remaining there after their non-resident work visas expire.
The Public Security Police, the agency in charge of immigration, said the monitoring will include fingerprints and palm prints and employ technologies for iris, retina and facial recognition.
Provisions also include a requirement that the city’s hotels provide immigration authorities with check-in and check-out information on all non-local guests within 24 hours.
It also will allow authorities to extend the current maximum 60-day detention for anyone caught illegally entering or remaining in the city and provides for their travel documents to be retained as a precaution against attempts on their part to delay their expulsions.
The bill also formally criminalizes fraudulent activities𑁋sham marriages and adoptions, phony employment and the like𑁋that frequently are concocted to secure residency or special stay permits.
