The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge disparaged for allowing tourists leave quickly

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

After regular praise from all major sectors in Macau in the first few months after its launch, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HKZMB) at present is becoming the source of disapproval, mainly from the lawmakers in the Legislative Assembly of Macau. The ‘honeymoon period’ of this mega-structure is currently beginning to fall apart.

In numerous interpellations to the government, lawmakers have been using the period before the agenda of the plenary session of the AL to disparage the aspects of the operation of the bridge.

Angela Leong was the first person to speak about the issues, commenting that as per to the recent data offered by the Statistics and Census Bureau, the visitor numbers to Macau in June surpassed 3 million, a data that shows a year-on-year rise of 18.9%. However, she observed that the number of same-day visitors have risen by 35.4%, resulting in a decline in the average length of stay.

Leong stated that the government has observed such figures come “with the operation of the HKZM Bridge, which has made transportation more convenient, leading to a significant increase in [same-day] stays, increasing the struggle to attract more visitors to stay overnight in Macau.”

In her view, the bridge is attracting more tourists into Macau than ever before, but also letting them out just as fast. She explained that it disagreed with the bridge’s objective of increasing visitors’ length of the stay as established by the central government in a bid to transform Macau into a “World Tourism and Leisure Center.”

The lawmaker has requested the government to take adequate steps to “increase the attractiveness” of Macau as a destination by creating new tourism products as well as upgrading the quality of tourist facilities, sites and services.

« Back to Page