Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) organized a familiarization group of nearly 100 Southeast-Asian travel agents coming from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to Macau for site inspections and business networking during April 14 – 17. The mega trade visit serves to further promote international visitor-source markets. During their stay in Macau, the travel agency representatives visited various resort hotels, World Heritage sites and museums, enjoying spectacular themed shows and a taste of local delicacies. As part of their program, the Singapore trade delegates joined the "Macau Amazing Race" on April 15 to explore Macau's fascinating tourism features through the city-orientation contest. Furthermore, MGTO held a mini mart for Macau and Southeast-Asia travel trade partners on April 16 to facilitate direct negotiations about business opportunities and promote travel trade cooperation between Macau and the three countries. MGTO invited over 100 local trade delegates to the mini mart including 77 enterprises ranging from hotels, travel agencies, large-scale resort hotels, event venues to airlines and ferry operators. The participants explored and discussed business opportunities during the session, seeking to enchant more Southeast Asian to visit and experience Macau. MGTO also hosted a luncheon for the familiarization group. During her welcome speech, MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes stated that to be in line with government's strategic positioning of Macau as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure, MGTO set six work highlights this year, of which includes visitor source market diversification targeting Southeast Asia and Russia. Head of Destination Marketing Department, Betty Fok and the Coordinator of Macau Grand Prix Committee, João Manuel Costa Antunes gave an elaborate presentation about the latest tourism industry development and the 60th Macau Grand Prix for the familiarization group respectively. MGTO has always regarded Southeast Asia as an important visitor-source market and kept promoting Macau among their trade and citizens via a variety of channels for many years. In February 2009, MGTO established its representative office in Indonesia for market development. In March 2010, MGTO and some Mainland tourism departments jointly visited Singapore and Malaysia for the promotion of travel routes linking Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Macau. In July 2011, the office held an array of promotion events in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. During March and April last year, MGTO promoted Macau in the three Southeast-Asian countries together with Macau trade representatives. In early April this year, the office organized the "Macau Festival 2013" in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, a biennial event which enjoyed wide popularity. Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia all ranked among the top ten visitor-source markets in Macau last year. In the first two months this year, a total of 23,000 Singaporean visited Macau while the number of Malaysian and Indonesian visitors approximated 36,000 and 27,000 respectively. MGTO will make unrelenting efforts to expand international visitor sources and steadily enhance the diversified development of tourism markets.
