Macau, China, Dec. 4, 2025 (Lusa) - The director of Macau's Tourism Services Department wants the city to continue to be a platform for attracting tourists between Portugal and China.
"The work carried out in recent years in partnership with the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies, APAVT, to showcase Macau, open doors to tour operators and boost tourist flows is set to continue," Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said on Thursday.
She was speaking at the closing of the 50th congress of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT), which took place in Macao between Tuesday and today.
"Today we are closing [a cycle], but we will continue with other work, and Macau's designation as [APAVT's] Preferred International Destination for 2026 provides the framework for us to keep this connection alive," she recalled.
APAVT announced that it has once again chosen Macau - which hosted this congress for the sixth time - as the association's Preferred Destination in 2026, which will strengthen the partnership.
APAVT's Preferred Destination is a programme that includes communication and marketing, helping the chosen destination to promote itself in other markets.
The director of the Macau's Tourism Services Department added, in closing, that "another fundamental idea" of the region is that operators and travel agents should bear in mind the advantage they have in "accessing the market in the interior of China, taking advantage of the platform provided by Macao to create itineraries and destinations".
Portuguese nationals do not need a prior visa for mainland China for stays of up to 30 days.
"The partnership with APAVT over the last three years has really been one of our management's main strategies to boost the Portuguese market, and there have been a number of joint initiatives, above all to re-establish links with Portuguese tour operators," she had said on Wednesday.
Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes addressed the figures obtained, which, she says, "clearly show this path".
"Until October, the number of visitors, both from Portugal and Europe in general, recorded a double-digit annual increase, recovering to around 80% of the pre-pandemic figure," she said.
Specifically, Macao received 3.47 million visitors in October, 10.8% more than in the same period in 2024 and the highest figure ever for this month, it was announced today.
The number of tourists visiting the territory was the highest for any October since the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) began compiling monthly data in 1998, during the Portuguese administration.
The semi-autonomous Chinese region had also recorded a historic high for September, in that month: almost 3.8 million visitors, 9.8% more than in the same period in 2024.
On 17 January, the director of Macao Tourism Services said she expected between 38 and 39 million visitors this year.
In August, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes set a target of more than three million international visitors in 2025.
In the first 10 months of the year, Macau received almost 2.97 million tourists from abroad, 14.9% more than in the same period in 2024.
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Lusa
