News

Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) holds spring banquets today and tomorrow in Taiwan for Macau tourism promotion and exchange with local travel trade. MGTO hosts the local trade and media representatives for spring banquets in Taipei and Taichung on February 14 and 15 consecutively. Exchange and networking are enhanced during the banquets, where the delegation takes the opportunity to present Macau's latest tourism development and products, aiming to extend the length of Taiwanese visitors' stay in Macau. MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Head of Macau Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan, China, Nadia Leong Kit Chi and Head of Destination Marketing Department of MGTO, Betty Fok attend the above functions. Fernandes expressed that Taiwan has always ranked as the third largest tourist market for Macau. Taiwanese visitor arrivals to Macau surpassed 1,070,000 last year though the number dropped in comparison with 2011. It was nonetheless delightful to see the number of Taiwanese visitors staying overnight in Macau continuously growing each year and marking a rise of 2.6% in 2012. The proportion of Taiwanese visitors to overall overnight-stay visitors increased year-on-year by 5% in 2012, suggesting that Macau has gradually transformed from a transit station into a tourist destination in the Taiwanese's perspective, a goal MGTO has long strived to reach. According to the statistics provided by Statistics and Census Bureau, the number of Taiwanese overnight-stay visitors in Macau hit 414,718 in 2012, a year-on-year growth of 2.6%. The average length of Taiwanese visitors' stay was 1.76 night. Hotel overnight guests from Taiwan reached 362,707, of which 73.7% checked-in at 5-Star hotels. The latest provisional figures show that the number of Taiwanese visitors staying overnight in Macau maintained a growing trend in the first two months of 2013, a period-on-period escalation of 5.0%. The remarkable percentage once again proves that Taiwan is a market worth unremitting dedication and still demonstrating great potential for development. This year marks the upcoming 25th Macau International Fireworks Display Contest and the 60th Macau Grand Prix. MGTO will commingle Macau festivities, cultural attractions and modern tourist facilities together, promoting diversely-themed tours to enchant visitors of different nationalities to Macau at different times of the year so that they can experience Macau's composite aroma of East and West, trendy and antique. With the strategic positioning of Macau's development as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure, MGTO will continue its promotional theme "Touching Moments･Experience Macau". With the highlighted concept of "365 days a year, every day is good to visit Macau", MGTO encourages every consumer in Macau to embrace his/her unique touching moments. The office will also enhance its cooperation with airlines and travel agencies in the Taiwan market, suggesting fun ways of exploring Macau and various itineraries including cultural, festive and shopping routes tailor-made for different visitor categories such as "family visitor", "office worker", "female segment", "newlywed" and "silver peer" so that they can explore Macau at any time the way they like. As the hub of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau tourism region, Macau will continue to widen and deepen its collaboration with neighboring regional destinations and its promotion of multi-destination itinerary products this year. In active pursuit of extending the length of visitors' stay in Macau, MGTO will focus on six work highlights this year as follows: 1. Sum up planning and research, deepen tourism and leisure system; 2. Optimize industry management and training, actively promote quality tourism; 3. Develop cultural tourism products, promote events and festivals; 4. Support community tourism, strengthen public communication; 5. Innovate promotional techniques, explore new markets; 6. Participate in international organizations, strengthen regional cooperation. In terms of community tourism, MGTO will initiate the "Development Plan for Community Tourism", a scheme to develop community tourism in cooperation with local associations. The highlights include guidebook publication, cultural festivals and cultivation of travel information systems. The scheme enables visitors to explore different districts in Macau and encounter extraordinary features of Macau. In addition, MGTO has launched the Beta (trial) version of MGTO's brand-new website (http://beta.macautourism.gov.mo/index.php?lang=en) and will introduce more Smartphone travel applications to facilitate visitors' convenient access to extensive travel tips. Currently there are 5 airline companies which operate flights between Macau and Taiwan, together providing over 126 direct flights weekly from Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung to Macau. The flight service is frequent and convenient for visitors.
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IFT Tourism Research Centre (ITRC) released the inaugural report on its latest major research project - the Macao Human Resource Monitoring Survey (MHRM). The MHRM Survey aims to fill the gap in knowledge of information of the Macao's labor force such as employees' level of job satisfaction, job stress, intention-to-quit and organisational loyalty measures, as well as satisfaction with a host of occupational and work conditions such as benefits, opportunities for advancement, inter-relationships at work, etc. with focuses on the tourism, hospitality and gaming industries. Information are gathered and analysed for industry leaders and the general public to reply on in regard to understanding issues surrounding the labor force. Findings of the MHRM Survey will be released twice a year. The first issue of MHRM report can be requested at this link http://www.ift.edu.mo/itrc/MHRM.html For any enquiry, please email to iftpr@ift.edu.mo
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In order to raise the attention of the public about the Regulations of 'Consumer Arbitration Centre', Consumer Council is holding an online quiz game that will end on 18th March. Many entries have been received and residents are welcome to participate. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the establishment of 'Consumer Arbitration Centre' and 'World Consumer Rights Day' on 15th March, Consumer Council organizes carnivals and an online quiz to promote the services of the Arbitration Centre. The first two carnivals were held on 2nd and 9th Mach respectively, and the mentioned online quiz was launched on 4th March. Over 800 entries have been received since the quiz was launched. Participants who have correct answers to 20 random questions will be entitled to a draw, 40 winners will be drawn and awarded with MOP500 each. The Council indicates that the online quiz game will end at 5PM on 18th March. Interested residents may visit the Council's website (www.consumer.gov.mo) to participate in the game. For inquiry, please call 8988-9315.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 18.3% year-on-year to 757,190 in January 2013. Package tour visitors mainly came from Mainland China (562,722), with 250,029 coming from Guangdong Province, followed by those from Taiwan, China (55,473); the Republic of Korea (42,469) and Hong Kong (30,763). Macao residents travelling outbound using services of travel agencies increased by 18.9% year-on-year to 112,893 in January 2013, of which 40,308 travelled in package tours. The main destinations were Mainland China (64,808), accounting for 57.4% of the total, while Hong Kong and Taiwan, China took up 18.3% and 11.2% respectively. There were 100 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of January 2013, providing 26,027 rooms, up by 16.5% year-on-year; guest rooms of 5-star hotels accounted for 63.8% of the total. In January 2013, the hotels and guesthouses received 832,543 guests, up by 19.1% year-on-year, with the majority coming from Mainland China (60.3% of total) and Hong Kong (14.5%). The average length of stay of guests decreased by 0.13 night year-on-year to 1.4 nights. Meanwhile, the average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 82.9%, up by 3.8 percentage points year-on-year, with 5-star hotels reaching 84.9%. In January 2013, visitor-guests took up 70.1% of the total number of overnight visitors, higher than the 59.1% in January 2012.
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Consumer Council released its latest specific price survey on shampoos and shower gels. Survey result showed that price differences from about 9 percent to the highest 51 percent were recorded for the same brand of product sold at different outlets, various price changes were also observed in many shampoo brands and certain shower gels recorded different levels of price decreases. Consumer Council collected prices of 10 brands of shampoo and shower gel from 32 retail outlets (including supermarkets and drugstores) on 11th March. In comparison with the data from January's survey, the lowest price discrepancy recorded was only 8.62 percent, the greatest price difference was observed in 'Dove damage therapy intensive repair shampoo/700ml', which was sold at $39.7 to $59.9, with a difference of over $20.0 or 50.88 percent. Only 1 out of the 10 surveyed items recorded no change in price in the current survey and obvious price changes were recorded in 'Rejoice Shampoo/1000ml', which observed price differences of less than 10 percent in 18 retail spots. For shower gel, prices of 'LUX Body Wash/1L' had been decreased by about 10 percent in 4 retail spots. The remaining items recorded only minimal price changes. Consumer Council indicates that selling prices of the same product are found to vary in different branches under the same supermarket chain stores. Consumers are advised to check with the data provided by the Council on its website (www.consumer.gov.mo) and its 'Supermarket price information platform' iPhone and Android apps. For enquiry, please call 8988 9315.
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Consumer Council released its latest specific price survey on canned foods. Survey result showed that price differences recorded for the same brand sold at different retail outlets ranged from 6.5 percent to the highest 38.8 percent. Consumer Council collected prices of 11 brands of canned food from 20 retail outlets on 7th March. In comparison with January's survey, prices of 6 brands remained unchanged and price differences recorded for the same canned food brand sold at different retail outlets ranged from the lowest 6.5 percent to the highest 38.8 percent. A general price discrepancy of almost 10 percent to 20 percent was recorded for most surveyed canned food brands. In the current survey, the greatest price difference of 38.8 percent was recorded in 'Ma Ling Premiun Ham Luncheon Mear/340g', which was sold at $16.5 to $22.9, with a difference of $6.4. Survey result also showed that selling prices of some surveyed products in branches under the same supermarket chain were slightly different. Consumers are advised to check with the survey data to make price comparisons. The specific price survey on canned foods is now available on Consumer Council's website (www.consumer.gov.mo) and in the Council's 'Supermarket Price Information Platform' iPhone and Android apps. .
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Owing to tropical cyclone in Western Australia (Broome, Dampier, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Karratha, Kununurra, Marble Bar, Nullagine, Port & South Hedland, Roebourne, Wickham and Wyndham) and flooding in Queensland, Macao Post announced that all mail delivery services (including Correspondence, Printed Matters, Small Packets, Parcels and EMS) from Macao to Western and Queensland of Australia are subject to delay until further notice.
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Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) holds two sessions of Retail Service Trainer Workshop for managers and supervisors of the retail industry to equip them with high-quality customer service skills. By enhancing service quality, it is expected to create a friendly tourism environment in harmony and contribute to building Macau into a "World Centre of Tourism and Leisure". The workshop held last year received the support and active participation from the retail industry, so this year MGTO continues to organize two sessions of "Achieving Total Customer Satisfaction" Retail Service Trainer Workshop during March 12-13 and April 16-17 respectively. The topics of each two-day workshop include The Role of the Manager/Supervisor as a Trainer/Coach, Requirements for Professionalism, Total Customer Satisfaction Concept, System Approach to Effective Retails Service Training, Practical Demonstration of Retail Training Skills, etc, which will be lectured by the trainers from an international management development company through interactive learning method. MGTO hopes that after providing the professional training to retail shop managers and supervisors, they can master practical quality customer service skills and transfer the skills to their frontline staff, thus eventually enhancing the total service quality of the retail industry. MGTO has committed to advocate Macau's warm hospitality, and by organizing training workshops to boost the service quality of tourism industry, it is believed to strengthen the image of Macau as a tourist destination.
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Macao Post announced that the postal facilities previously affected by noxious fumes in Jamaica have resumed operations, mail delivery services (including Correspondence, Printed Matters, Small Packets and Parcels) from Macao to Jamaica have returned to normal.
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Consumer Council released its latest specific price survey on rice. Survey result showed that prices of rice remained stable, only 1 out of the 15 surveyed products recorded a change in price and price differences recorded for the same product sold at different outlets ranged from 1 to 22 percent. Consumer Council collected prices of 15 brands of rice from 21 retail outlets on 5th March. In comparison with data from January, prices of rice remained stable as only 'Golden Elephant Brand Premium Jasmine Rice/8kg' recorded a price increase of 5.1 percent at one retail outlet. Price differences ranged from 1 to 22 percent were recorded in the current survey. 'Tsing Ling Gi" Thai Hom Mali Rice/10kg', which was sold at $124.0 to $151.0, differed for 21.77 percent; 'Wing On Thai Jasmine Rice/5kg' and 'Japanese Variety Pearl Rice/5kg' both recorded price discrepancies of over 15 percent. Consumers are advised to check with the survey data to make price comparisons. The specific price survey on rice is now available on Consumer Council's website (www.consumer.gov.mo) and in the Council's 'Supermarket Price Information Platform' iPhone and Android apps. For inquiry, please call 8988 9315.
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