Lawrence Ho, chairman and CEO of global gaming operator Melco Resorts and Entertainment, believes the Chinese special administrative region (SAR) of Macau could benefit by co-hosting tourism events with the nearby island of Hengqin, located on the Chinese Mainland.
According to the Macao Daily News, Ho sees mutual benefit for both destinations in the plan, which undoubtedly would also benefit Melco’s Studio City integrated resort in Macau’s Cotai district, close to a Hengqin border crossing.
Ho made the suggestion in his role as a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, GGRAsia reports. He said Macau and Hengqin should co-host “globally influential” sporting events as well as meetings, exhibitions and conferences, promoting them as “two-center” activities. Easing the visa process for participants and creating a more convenient “cross-border arrangement” would help both destinations become tourism “hotspots,” he added.
The idea of “borderless” travel between Macau and Hengqin isn’t new. As early as 2017, the concept was proposed by Francis Lui, chairman of Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group.
According to China Travel News, Macau Travel Industry Council President Andy Wu Keng Kuong says allowing people to freely come and go between both destinations, entering and returning several times in a single vacation trip or business excursion, could increase the average length of stay by overseas visitors to Macau. At present, Macau and Mainland China have differing visa policies for those visitors.
In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, 92.2 percent of Macau’s almost 40 million visitors originated in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to Macau’s Statistics and Census Service.
Macau is working to diversify the city’s economy beyond gaming, which historically has accounted for 80 percent of government revenues, half of gross domestic product and more than a fifth of jobs, per official data.
As a requirement of the city’s new 10-year gaming concessions, the local government ordered gaming firms to actively develop more non-gaming attractions to make Macau a “world center of tourism and leisure.” The city’s second Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development started in 2021 and will continue through 2025.
