Macau’s top tourism official said Tuesday she was convinced that the city would benefit from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB), which was officially opened by President Xi Jinping in Zhuhai Tuesday.
The world’s longest sea bridge opened to traffic this morning.
Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) Director Helena de Senna Fernandes made the remark on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 7th Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) Macau 2018 at MGM COTAI.
The theme of the two-day forum is “Strategic Partnership in a New Era, Rising Momentum for a Shared Future”.
This year’s GTEF features the European Union as its partner region and Guangdong as its featured partner province, and a series of in-depth dialogue sessions on the new momentum of strategic collaboration between the EU and China with a special focus on cooperation across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA).
Senna Fernandes gave a press conference before the opening ceremony.
When asked how Macau enterprises would be able to take advantage of the opening of the mega-bridge which will connect the Greater Bay Area, which consists of Macau and Hong Kong plus nine mainland cities, Senna Fernandes responded that “the whole of Macau and the areas around have been waiting anxiously for the bridge to open and so it is now the time to recapitalise on the opportunities which it brings us with the opening of the bridge.
“On the tourism front it will be beneficial and there are also other benefits that it brings us in terms of logistics and trade. The bridge will bring connectivity, because it will bring us closer to the airport in Hong Kong and from the airport from Hong Kong a bigger and wider catchment of possible tourists [will come] to Macau.
“It will also be able to help us attract more and [a] wider range of people from different source markets and that will help diversify our tourist market. The other benefit is that the bridge itself will become a tourist attraction which in turn will bring more people to Macau as well since people would either want to see the bridge or go across the bridge which will give us additional importance because of the novelty of the bridge”.
The annual forum ends today
