A three-month citywide campaign to encourage residents to spend at local shops and restaurants will kick off this coming Monday, according to an announcement published yesterday by one of its organisers, the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials DSEDT).
Taking place until 29 December, the promotion aims to stimulate the city’s economy by offering e-vouchers to residents who spend at least 50 patacas – using a recognised digital wallet – at any of the more than 22,000 participating businesses during the week. The vouchers, which are valued between 10 to 100 patacas, can then be redeemed on weekends.
The idea is to encourage local consumers to stay and shop in Macao on Saturdays and Sundays, instead of flocking to nearby mainland cities like Zhuhai, where goods are cheaper and variety is much greater. The weekend exodus of customers to the mainland has been causing major problems for Macao’s retailers and restaurateurs.
[See more: Macao’s citywide consumption drive will begin earlier than expected]
Originally scheduled to take place in October, the new citywide campaign was fast tracked to this month at the request of struggling retailers. Some 110 million patacas have been budgeted for the initiative, according to the acting chief of the DSEDT Chan Tze Wai, who spoke at the event’s launch ceremony yesterday.
The campaign is based on an earlier campaign that was confined to businesses in the northern districts, where retailers have been particularly hard hit. The deputy chair of one of the area’s business associations, Ieong Weng Kuong, told TDM that “an average increase of 15 to 10 percent” in business volume resulted from the earlier campaign.
More information on the new, citywide campaign can be found on its website. Some of the campaign’s supported apps include MPay, Alipay (Macau) and the e-wallet apps from banks such as the Bank of China (Macau), Tai Fung and Luso Pay.
