To celebrate the joyful Year of the Horse with Hong Kong travel trade, business partners and media friends, Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) hosted a spring luncheon in Hotel Icon today (14 Feb) to thank them for their continuous support to the tourism development of Macau. Mr. Manuel Pires, Deputy Director of MGTO, led a delegation to join the Spring Luncheon. Over 200 guests from local travel trade, business partners and media were present, including Commissioner for Tourism of the Hong Kong SAR Government, Philip Yung, Director of Asia Tourism Exchange Centre, Liu Zhi Jiang, Executive Director of Hong Kong Tourism Board, Anthony Lau and Chairman of Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, Michael Wu. In 2013, the number of visitors to Macau reached 29,324,000, representing an increase of 4.42% over 2012. Being the second largest tourist source market, over 6.7 million Hong Kong residents traveled to Macau last year. In the Year of Horse, MGTO will continue to promote its diversified tourism developments with the goal of building Macau into a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure. In addition, MGTO will keep enhancing the community tourism project by launching a diversity of community activities in various districts. In line with the promotional strategies of MGTO, Representative in Hong Kong will launch promotional activities targeting consumers, trade partners as well as niche markets such as students, wedding parties and business incentives etc. Innovative promotional platforms especially social media will be employed to tap in the upcoming markets alongside the traditional print and electronic media. Moreover, seminars, product presentations, thematic familiarization tours and joint promotions will also be organized to strengthen the communication and collaboration with trade partners and the media.
