tourism

Hong Kong, one of Asia's hottest destinations, hopes to welcome more than 30mn visitors in 2008 as mainland Chinese throng the city's shops and restaurants despite global stock market turmoil.

The tiny city of 7mn has as many visitors a year as Japan, Thailand and Singapore combined but is fending off a resurgent Macau.

It estimates it would take in 30.43mn visitors this year, more than half of those from China.

Macau's visitor numbers look set to surpass neighboring Hong Kong's this year.

According to government statistics, the former Portuguese-ruled enclave of about half a million people recorded more than 27 million arrivals in 2007, an increase of almost 23 percent from the previous year.

Arrivals to Hong Kong also registered a record high last year, with more than 28 million visitors.

The sharp rise in Macau's visitor numbers comes after the special administrative government liberalized the gaming industry in the territory.

The world's busiest casino town is straining to handle the affections of the world's largest population.

By the boatload, gamblers gripping Chinese passports pour off ferries and cram, sardinelike, into a customs building in this once-sleepy former Portuguese colony on China's coast. They line up, hundreds deep on a weekend morning, for an entry stamp. Then they line up again for scarce taxis or catch shuttle buses into a town bristling with new casinos, fountains and resorts.

The TimesOnline advises readers to "Bet on Macau" for 2008, naming the island enclave as one its top picks for the up coming year. Expect to see Macau on a number of this years travel picks as the rest of the world wakes up to the potential.

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Hong Kong is passé; Macau is the new destination for moneybags in China. Its casinos, always its star attraction, were one of the reasons it was given the same status as Hong Kong — that of a Special Administrative Region — after its handover from Portugal in 1999. Gambling is banned in China, but could continue in the ‘one country, two systems’ pattern that governs Hong Kong and Macau.

HONG KONG -- Macau, the former Portuguese colony that was returned to Chinese rule in 1999, was always the modest cousin to Hong Kong. Its big draw was tourism and gambling that drew locals looking to get away from the big-city buzz.

But that was then, and now Macau's gaming biz brings in more than Las Vegas and attracts multinational investors.

Macau generated revenue of 25.01 billion patacas (Bt9.19 trillion) for the first eight months of the year, of which 18.36 billion patacas, or 73.41 per cent, came from gambling tax. The second-largest income contributor is tourism.

Last year, this special administrative region of China recorded revenue of US$9.3 billion (Bt318 billion) from tourism, which is expected to increase to $15 billion this year. In the first half of this year, tourism income was $6 billion, up 38 per cent year on year.

Hong Kong and Macau have agreed to negotiate with the mainland government on combining into one the current separate visas for mainland tourists visiting the two cities.

The aim is for mainland tourists, under the Individual Visit Scheme, to travel to both places in one trip, according to Hong Kong Tourism Board chairman James Tien Pei-chun who revealed the plan yesterday.

Hong Kong and Macau are not competitors but partners in tourism promotion, Tien said after meeting with Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah and Macau tourism officials in the neighboring SAR.