Walking the streets of Macau after being out for six months has been a surreal experience.
Government health workers dressed to tow with medical protection gear have been replaced by tour groups, testing centers now lay abandoned as residents walk around without masks, and new businesses flourish where previous ones had closed following three years of hurt.
It’s strangely unnerving and relaxing in equal measures, like a Macau version of the Truman Show, where you always expect someone will slap you out of some fake reality.
The depressing mood has been replaced by cautious optimism, as tourists again conquered the streets and sidewalks of Oumun, and money again seems to flow to our shores.
The main issue now is, exactly how much money is flowing and to where?
The latest figures show gaming results for February remain less than half of those reported in pre-pandemic times. It’s still too early to say if that will be the norm for the rest of the year, but it’s safe to say we will unlikely see a bounce to the golden years in 2023 already.
With the VIP sector now almost completely obliterated, the weight of the recovery stands with the large crowd of mass tourism visitors that returned to the SAR.
After the last few years, any business is good business, but the city seems to be drugging along at half steam, stuck between its past gaming/tourism core business and the new diversified whole-family entertainment drive pushed by authorities.
Under their new 10-year concessions initiated this year, all six Macau gaming operators have as a whole pledged to the government to spend in aggregate MOP108.7 billion on non-gaming and exploring overseas-customer markets.
These new projects will take a long time to become reality, and until then the gaming and tourism sector is unsure of what approach to take.
We seemed to have achieved a kind of Macau-light version of the city we knew before. MICE events are planned, festivals prepared and the usual series of carnivals and city fair events have already been scheduled.
With the borders opened, the general situation is undoubtedly better, but without the excuse provided by the crisis, local authorities will be forced to actually advance concrete efforts to change the city’s role in the region.
The road is fully open and clear, but no one seems to know what direction to take yet. With no new ideas coming to fruition, the city has reverted to its old familiar ways, while left without its usual mojo.
There’s nothing new in the eastern front at the moment. All we are left with is that anything is better than nothing.
[MNA contributing editor]
