MGTO Annual Marketing Meeting opens

The opening ceremony of the Macau Government Tourist Office Annual Marketing Meeting was held today (June 25) at the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf Convention and Exhibition Center, where Director of Macau Government Tourist Office, João Manuel Costa Antunes presented the tourism development of Macau and outlined future marketing strategies to guests and MGTO’s representatives from 16 countries and regions. Speaking at the Marketing Meeting, Antunes pointed out that Macau’s tourism industry has entered a new phase of growth and is moving towards diversification. During the first five months of this year, visitor arrivals exceeded 10 million, registering an increase of 21.45% compared with the same period of 2006. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan continue to be the three largest visitor generating markets, with growths of 19.44%, 23.21% and 1.93% respectively. Apart from markets of the greater China region, international market arrivals have surged more than 40% year-on-year during the last three years, with Southeast Asia region showing exceptionally strong performance and recorded an increase of 68.3% during the first five months. Malaysia, for the first time, became the 4th visitor generating market, showing a healthy progress towards diversification of source markets. Antunes expressed that diversification is the key message today and product diversification helps to minimize the risk of over-dependence on key products, as well as helping to reduce seasonality, spreading tourism demand more equitably throughout the year. He continues that MGTO has employed “Experience Macau” as the promotional theme this year under the slogan, “A World of Difference, the Difference is Macau” for a series of promotions around the world through its representatives. Launching the theme - “Experience Macau” gradually moves the tourism development of Macau towards the goal of source markets and tourism product diversification. MGTO counts on its representatives around the world for their strong and extensive local networks to bring the promotional effect to its full. He noted that MGTO has put forward a number of promotional activities under the theme “Experience Macau” during the first half of 2007, which include participating in major and new tourism fairs worldwide, organizing of roadshows, worldwide advertising, print/electronic media promotional publications, themed tourism routes, sales promotions among others. He also stressed that the 10 “Experience Macau!” travel routes recently launched by MGTO’s representation in Hong Kong have received enthusiastic responses. These 10 routes, targeting different market segments of luxury, family, heritage, honeymoon or couples, retired seniors, photographers, religion, university students, history scholars and sports lovers, are designed to offer tailor-made experiences for visitors with different interests and enrich Macau’s tourism products. Macau will continue to strengthen regional and international tourism cooperation to attract more visitors to Macau as a single destination or one of the destinations in regional travel, he added. Antunes stressed that Macau needs to develop more flight routes to extend its transportation networks, which are essential to the diversification of source markets. MGTO will reinforce its cooperation with airlines to draw more visitors to fly to Macau while expanding its source markets and visitor portfolio. MGTO is developing new and potential international markets namely Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia and the Middle East. He emphasized that “Independent Travel” is a travel pattern gaining great popularity in the world, and riding on this trend, MGTO is taking measures to meet the needs of the these travelers through specific promotion methods and contents, travel information tools, online travel marketing, innovative tourism services among others to provide independent travelers with convenience access to the most up-to-date information and tailor-made services to fully “Experience Macau” in their visits. “The Historic Center of Macau” is Macau’s valuable tourism resource, and when integrated with its unique blend of Chinese and Portuguese cultures, leisure and entertainment, cuisines, festivals and events as well as sports, is the charming jewel to attract visitors. The large-scale convention and exhibition venues, shopping and resort facilities to be completed soon will further drive Macau along its path of tourism diversification. Antunes expressed that the Macau SAR Government is striving to develop business tourism and the MICE industry. The "Macau Business Tourism Center" established last April has assumed the role of a platform to facilitate the development of convention, exhibition and business tourism through supporting various convention and exhibition activities and training efforts. In 2006, the "Macau Business Tourism Center" has provided services and support to 78 events since April 2006. Under the coordination of the center, the 11th Asia Pacific Life Insurance Congress, to be attended by close to 10,000 participants, will be held in Macau in 2009. Antunes continued that MGTO will put great efforts in promotion and marketing while working to enhance the overall service quality in the tourism industry, aiming to develop Macau’s tourism industry healthily and to achieve diversification. MGTO needs to strengthen the strong partnership between the private and public sectors to achieve long-term sustainable growth. Following the meeting was a mini mart hosted by MGTO for the local tourism trade to meet with the 40 some representatives of MGTO to discuss business opportunities to bring in more visitors. After the opening ceremony, a 170-member delegation comprised of representatives of MGTO, travel trade, Commission for Tourism Development as well as performers headed for Shanghai in varies groups for the marketing meeting and “Experience Macau” promotional activities.