The Tourism Reopening Strategy of Macao and Its Enlightenment to Other Tourism Destinations in Asia

Abstract

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has hit the hotel and airline industry and other sectors of the economy hard. A number of world-renowned airlines and travel companies have closed and the tourism and hospitality industries are facing serious financial problems as demand has effectively fallen to an absolute minimum. How to reopen tourist destinations is one of the biggest concerns for the tourism industry after COVID-19. In the United States, the travel industry has urged President Biden to quickly reopen international tourism. However, Macao, China, is the first destination in Asia to reopen tourist visa services to visitors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan from 23 September 2020, based on a resilience framework. In natural disasters and emergencies, resilience is considered a crisis management tool that ensures the stability and resilience of businesses to all types of risk. To this end, this study employs a qualitative research approach to sort out and summarise the preparatory and operational measures for the re-opening of Macao's tourism industry in China and their impacts through semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with tourists visiting Macao after its re-opening. The main measures identified include: (1) epidemic prevention measures; (2) tourism bubbles; (3) tourism rules; and (4) preferential policies. In addition, due to the fluidity of the epidemic, the focus of management changes at any time. This study hopes to inform the reopening of other tourist destinations in Asia.