Tourists Choose Macau over Hong Kong
News which has been a long time coming, but will nevertheless cause consternation in the halls of power in Hong Kong, Macau has come within a whisker of overtaking its sister SARs visitor numbers in 2007 and will finish first in 2008.
Macau saw a jump in visitors to Macau of 23 per cent in 2007, recording a total of 27 million arrivals, just behind Hong Kong’s 28 million, a number itself up by 10 per cent.
However, Macau’s numbers flatter to deceive, nearly all of this increase is by Chinese mainland tourists coming to gamble at the city’s growing gaggle of Casinos. Fantastic news for Macau undoubtedly, but the city is unlikely to threaten Hong Kong’s unrivalled shopping and selection of tourism attractions in the near future.
In the long run, Macau’s boom is likely to benefit both Macau and Hong Kong.
Comments
That is so not true. Yes, I agree that there are more and more people know about Macau now than 10 years ago, and therefore more tourists visit Macau. There are also casinos that Hong Kong doesn’t have. However, it does not mean that tourists had chosen or will ever choose Macau over Hong Kong. Hong Kong is 4 times bigger than Macau and there are a lot more things to do. For example, there are the Ocean Park, an amusement park, and Disneyland, tons of shopping malls, a giant outdoor Buddha, nightlife distracts like L.K.F. and Soho…ect You can’t find anything like these in Macau. I think it is fairer to say that there are more tourists who would like to go to Macau for the weekend when they are visiting Hong Kong, but that’s it.