Archana Sharma – New Delhi
Macau, one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China, is focusing on promoting the city as a solo leisure as well as business tourism destination in India. For the same, they recently appointed a new representative in India, VFS Global, with an office in New Delhi and Mumbai. Commenting on this, Arzan Khambatta, head, India representative office, Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) stated, “We will be offering specialised packages in New Delhi and Mumbai followed by Bengaluru, Chennai and Ahmedabad at a later stage, through the help of the Indian travel trade in accordance to the needs of the Indian travellers. We are also looking at various training programmes, not just for the management but also for the sales staff as they are one of the key players.” Khambatta also informed that they will be holding a Macau symposium in September 2015, tentatively in Goa, wherein they will be inviting major travel trade players.
Macau hosted over 1,67,000 Indian tourists in 2014 showing a 4.5 per cent year on year growth, among which 80.1 per cent of visitors stayed overnight in Macau, 3.1 per cent more in comparison to the previous year. Talking about the preferences of Indian travellers, Cecilia Tse Heng Sai, deputy director, MGTO, informed that Indian visitors stayed for an average of 2.69 nights in 2014, while on average it was 1.9 days over nights. “Ideally one should stay for two nights in Macau as only then can one witness the unique fusion of Portuguese and Chinese cultures and cuisines,” she added. MGTO is looking at organising promotional activities in India, including multi – destination promotions with Hong Kong and Zhuhai. MGTO is also planning to launch customised mobile applications for the India market.