The Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) is promoting Macau at the World Travel Fair 2010, which opened today in Shanghai and runs until 29 May. MGTO Deputy Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes led a delegation with officials and travel trade to the event to showcase Macau’s potential as a leisure and business tourism destination. Shanghai World Travel Fair (WTF) opened this morning at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. Shanghai Tourism Administration Director Dao Shuming launched the three day long event, with Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes being one of the invited guests for the ribbon cutting ceremony of WTF. WTF is a big scale outbound tourism fair in Mainland China and this year is expected to attract more visitors and participants, as Shanghai is a draw for tourists and travel trade for being the host of World Expo 2010, providing a bigger exposure to Macau’s promotion. The Macau delegation headed by Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes to WTF includes MGTO officials and Macau travel trade representatives from Air Macau and several local hotels, in a total of around 20 people. The Macau booth at WTF takes the form of a heritage building and is decorated with MGTO’s colorful campaign “Experience Macau!”, giving a glimpse of the historic and the new Macau. In the afternoon, MGTO hosted a cocktail reception at the Macau booth to boost relations with travel trade, media and other guests. A WTF Awards Ceremony will take place in the evening during the welcome dinner of the exhibition. On Friday, an Outbound Tourism Forum will take place as part of the WTF program. MGTO deputy director will be one of the guest speakers at the daylong event. Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes will talk about Macau’s tourism goals and strategies, the city’s tourism resources and the latest tourism developments. The forum’s agenda includes a release of an Outbound Tourism Market Report of the Yangtze River Delta of China, among other topics. Mainland China is Macau’s top visitor source market and a priority focus for MGTO’s promotions. In the first four months of the year Macau welcomed 8.2 million visitors (a 12.4 percent year on year increase), of which 4.3 million or 53.3 percent came from Mainland China, 20 percent more than the same period last year.
