China may soon resume e-visas to allow individual Chinese residents to visit Macau and permit the sale of package tours to Macau, announced Macau’s chief executive, Ho Iat Seng, on September 24.
Ho told reporters that preparation would take at least a month, so the resumption of e-visas and package tours could be expected in late October or early November.
For a start, the package tours would be accessible to residents from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Fujian provinces, and Shanghai. These markets represented almost 60 per cent of mainland visits to Macau in 2019.
The reopening scheme is expected to bring some 40,000 daily visitors to Macau on average.
Currently, Chinese tourists to Macau have to complete a week-long approval process.
Travellers from Hong Kong and overseas will continue to face a seven-day quarantine at a designated hotel, plus an additional three days of health monitoring.
