Macau advised to boost tourism-dependent economy through integration with mainland as Hong Kong ends hotel quarantine

The return of mainland Chinese tour groups to Macau in November will inject much-needed cash into its struggling tourism-dependent economy, but the casino hub should also seek to integrate with neighbouring cities to diversify sources of growth, observers have said.

Hong Kong’s long-awaited end to hotel quarantine on Monday has raised questions over whether its neighbour will follow suit and also ease restrictions aimed at keeping Covid-19 out. But Macau Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng on Saturday said the city had no plans to relax travel curbs for international arrivals, who must undergo seven days of hotel quarantine followed by three days of health monitoring.

Ho’s message was clear: even as the city prepared to welcome 40,000 mainland travellers a day, the government would adhere to the nation’s “dynamic-zero” Covid-19 strategy that prioritised eliminating cases as soon as they arose, rather than adopt a policy of living with the virus.

Eilo Yu Wing-yat, a political scientist at the University of Macau, said Ho’s stance on keeping its pandemic-control measures aligned with the rest of the nation’s was understandable as the city heavily relied on its open border with the mainland, across which flowed a stream of workers and solo travellers daily.

“Macau cannot really make its own choice. Its economy depends on tens of thousands of workers who cross the border from Zhuhai to work in the casino hub every day,” he said. “I cannot see why the city’s government would take any drastic action to change the status quo.”

Macau recorded 39 million tourist arrivals in 2019. Even though their numbers fell to 5.9 million in 2020, they rebounded to 7.7 million last year, with 90 per cent arriving via land from the mainland.