Safeguarding Macau's tourism boom
The Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) recently held a crisis-management seminar focused on the tourism industry, attended by leading travel operators and companies dependent on the industry.
MGTO director Joao Manuel Costa Antunes said Macau's tourism sector was growing rapidly and that it was necessary to set up contingency plans to safeguard it. Owing to the recent investment boom in casinos, millions of Chinese have been flooding into the former Portuguese colony, driving Macau's gambling revenues up 22 per cent last year to 6.95 billion Hong Kong dollars (Bt31.45 billion). Macau's gambling revenues started to surge in 2004, when Las Vegas Sands Corp and Galaxy Casino ended the four-decade monopoly of billionaire Stanley Ho. Foreign investors are staking billions on making the city the gambling capital of Asia. Seven new casinos opened in Macau last year, bringing the total to 24. The number of gaming tables doubled in the period to 2,762, says the website of Macau's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Suchat Sritama
The Nation
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