After a three-year closure, mainland China relaunched tours to Macau on Monday, with a total of 135 people from six tour groups arriving.
This comes after the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China announced last Friday that from 6 February, travel from mainland China to Hong Kong and Macau would be fully resumed.
The six mainland tour groups arrived in Macau by both land and air on Monday, the first time any mainland tour groups have visited Macau since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They included two from Guangdong Province, three from Shanghai and one from Liaoning Province, via Hengqin Port, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and Macau International Airport respectively.
The first mainland tour to Macau by land crossing was from Guangdong Province, with a total of 27 people set to stay in Macau for two days. The tour will include the Our Lady of Sorrows Church and Taipa House Museum, among other popular tourist locations.
The first tour by air was a 17-member group from Shanghai, scheduled to stay in Macau for five days.
According to Deputy Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, Cheng Wai Tong, 15 tour groups have registered to come to Macau, with a combined total of over 400 visitors.
“Tour applications are resuming rapidly and the MGTO will closely monitor the situation,” Cheng said.
“According to the MGTO’s understanding, the Macau tourism industry has recently organized Southeast Asian tours to Macau as well. The MGTO is studying the funding options for Hong Kong tours, Taiwan tours and international tours. For international tours, each tour participant will receive a subsidy of MOP$350 for one night and MOP$500 for two nights or more.”
The long awaited resumption of tours comes after the mainland announced plans last year to do so for “four provinces and one city” initially, but the plan was delayed due to the pandemic.
