Protecting “quality of life” for locals
China’s Ministry of Public Security has announced a plan that will make it easier for some Mainland residents to visit Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to GGRAsia.
At the same time, Macau’s Chief Executive, Fernando Chui Sai On, has said the city is not seeking any expansion of the Individual Visa Scheme. Chui said the government wants to safeguard “the quality of life of local residents” while still “satisfying the demands from the Chinese tourists that have chosen Macau as their travel destination.
“We are not actively requesting an increase in the number of visitors from Mainland China or to add more mainland cities” to the IVS policy, he said. About 30.7 million people visited the territory last year, an annual decline of 2.6 percent, according to official data. The optimum tourist capacity of Macau has been estimated at between 32.6 million and 33.7 million visitors, or 89,374 and 92,325 tourists a day, the number who came to Macau in 2014, according to a report released last March.
