Officials estimate city to host record 30 million visitors
A concerted effort is being made to transform Macau's infrastructure so that the city can cope better with the record number of visitors expected this year.
Tourist arrivals are anticipated to break the 27 million figure set last year. For the first five months of this year, 12.6 million tourists entered Macau, an increase of 17.4 per cent compared with the same period last year. This has led to officials placing the figure at 30 million for the year.
One of the consequences of more visitors has been traffic chaos. For this and other reasons, a HK$4 billion light rail system is at the top of the list of public work projects in Macau this year. Although this project has been criticised for primarily serving the needs of tourists, a second phase serving the northwestern districts of the city will also be considered for 2011.
Worries about how Macau will cope with providing enough public transport for visitors was heightened when the 3,000-room Venetian opened last year.
The problem was exacerbated by the shortage of licensed bus and taxi drivers, many of whom were lured to work in the guest transport systems provided by big new hotels and casinos.
But both the government and the private sector have been taking steps to alleviate this problem. Venetian developer Las Vegas Sands launched the CotaiJet ferry service earlier this year with a high-speed service between Hong Kong's Shun Tak Centre and the newly opened Taipa Temporary Ferry Terminal on Taipa Island.
Apart from the 56 sailings operating between Hong Kong and Macau, CotaiJet has been offering overnight sailings since the beginning of this month. These six additional trips include three (at 12am, 1am and 2am) departing from Hong Kong to Taipa, and three (at 1am, 3am and 5am) from Taipa to Hong Kong.
'The expanded overnight CotaiJet ferry service will provide greater flexibility for visitors who come to Macau for live entertainment, business and shopping at Macau's new mega shopping centres on the Cotai Strip such as the Grand Canal Shoppes and The Shoppes at Four Seasons,' said Stephen Weaver, president for Asia, Las Vegas Sands.
CotaiJet's custom-built ferries each carry more than 400 passengers and travel at top speeds of close to 42 knots.
The company also has plans to operate ferry services between the Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui and the Taipa Temporary Ferry Terminal.
Round-the-clock ferry operator TurboJET launched its Upstream Check-In Service last year. This operation partners with several airlines, allowing passengers to obtain their boarding passes and check-in their luggage within the ferry terminals at Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau. To keep up with new competition, the company will soon launch a fleet-wide refurbishment initiative with its first renovated vessel to be unveiled this month.
To cope with long taxi queues, the popular 'taxi ambassador' scheme has been extended to the end of December this year. It involves the recruitment of young volunteers or students to help foreign visitors at taxi stations outside the Macau Ferry Terminal and at Macau International Airport.
The aim of the programme is to prevent misunderstanding and to help with communication between taxi drivers and tourists. Jointly organised by the Macau Government Tourist Office, the General Union of Neighbors Association of Macau and the Association of Traders and Operators of Commercial Vehicles, it has an received an enthusiastic response from visitors.
In the long run, the government sees the need for a mass transit rail system. Public consultation was completed in August last year and the first phase of the Light Rail Transit is due to be finished in 2011. The route will link 12 stations on the peninsula with 11 on the Cotai Strip, with the system operating 19 hours a day, with a three-minute frequency during peak periods and three- to six-minute frequency during off-peak periods.
The operation will use a four-carriage train and will have a peak capacity of 8,000 passengers per hour.