Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) organized the event "Macau Night" jointly with InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) in Guangzhou yesterday (29 October) to showcase Macau as a fascinating travel destination to local media and enterprises. The event is expected not only to extend Macau's promotion network but also to enhance regional cooperation in tourism and attract high-end visitors from Southern China and across the country. MGTO always highly values the Mainland market. In particular, Guangdong province prevails as Macau's largest tourism market in Mainland China. Since January to September 2013, Macau has welcomed over 6.1 million visitors from Guangdong Province, which amounts to 44% of total visitor arrivals from the Mainland and ranks the first among other provinces and autonomous regions. MGTO has long been actively promoting Macau together with the tourism sector while striving to consolidate Macau's image as a travel destination. By organizing the Macau Night, the Office can extend its local network through IHG's connections with various enterprises in Guangzhou. MGTO also presented Macau's latest tourism trends as well as the upcoming events and festivals, entertainment shows and business tourism products to the local press and enterprises during the press conference and evening banquet for this event. MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes and Head of Destination Marketing Department, Betty Fok joined this event in Guangzhou together with travel industry partners from Macau. Director Senna Fernandes and Area General Manager of IHG in Guangzhou, Foshan and Huizhou, Samuel Tsang officiated the aforementioned event. Senna Fernandes remarked that Macau and Guangzhou are both widely popular destinations for leisure and business travel. Considering that both cities overflow with diverse tourism resources in close geographic proximity, MGTO will continue to promote multi-destination tours through cooperation schemes which encourage Mainland citizens and foreigners to visit both destinations in one trip to the region in order to facilitate their mutual tourism development. Representatives of the consulate of different countries in Guangzhou and the chambers of commerce were invited to join the event of Macau Night. Aside from tourism-related businesses including travel agencies, airlines and exhibition companies, the invited guests represent a range of enterprises from over 20 different sectors. The event night welcomed 400 participants in total. MGTO took part in China (Guangdong) International Tourism Industry Expo 2013 which was held in Guangzhou from late August to early September. During the Expo, the Office promoted Macau to industry partners and Guangzhou citizens. Through the Macau Night, different sectors were again updated on the latest trends of Macau tourism, which helped to promote Macau's attractions and positioning as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure. In early November, MGTO will visit Qingyuan for Guangdong International Tourism Culture Festival 2013, dedicated to carrying out promotion through a variety of ways, angles and channels. Upon the invitation of Zhongshan Municipal Tourism Bureau, MGTO visited the latest tourism attractions and facilities in Zhongshan together with 21 travel agencies and 5 media agencies today (30 October). Director Senna Fernandes met with Deputy Director of Zhongshan Municipal Tourism Bureau, Dong Zuwen in the morning. During the meeting, both parties exchanged their perspectives on marketing strategies and discussed future opportunities to promote regional tourism in collaboration. The tourism offices of Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Macau signed the "Cooperation Memorandum in Tourism among Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Macau" in 2006 and since then joined hands to encourage visitations to the three cities in one trip. The three tourism offices jointly promoted multi-destination tours in Wuhan, Nanjing, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and so on in different occasions to further extend the tourism market together.
