Some 480 shops in Macao’s northern districts are offering special consumer incentives as of today, in a bid to spur sales in their lacklustre local economy, TDM reports.
The incentives are in the form of discounts, vouchers and 500,000 patacas worth of raffle prizes via digital payments platforms. The scheme will run until 4 August this year.
At the campaign’s launch yesterday, Meituan (one of China’s most popular lifestyle apps) announced it was launching a new feature to help encourage mainland Chinese and Hong Kong tourists to venture beyond Macao’s usual tourist quarters – and hopefully to the northern part of the peninsula.
[See more: Tourists in Areia Preta? Yes, if authorities have their way]
A business development director with Meituan, Jobbie Cheung, told TDM the app would offer a detailed tourist map of the northern areas, with information about restaurants, accommodation, stores and the best spots to take photos. “With our back-end data technology, we believe you can succeed in attracting tourists to different neighbourhoods,” she noted.
Cheing Wai Tong, deputy director of the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), said MGTO was also working on attracting international visitors to different neighbourhoods in Macao and that gastronomy would play a significant role in this.
The issue of encouraging visitors to go beyond the historic districts and Cotai, and explore other parts of Macao, has long vexed policymakers, who want to reduce overcrowding in the city centre and spread tourist spending more equitably around the territory.
