The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government is to realise and implement in an orderly manner the major goals and tasks outlined in the culture and tourism development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Greater Bay Area).

Such plan was jointly issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Office of the Leading Group for the Development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Guangdong Government.

The culture and tourism development plan is formulated in accordance with the outline development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which was issued in February 2019. The culture and tourism development plan adheres to the “One country, two systems” principle, while encompassing initiatives to promote the strengths respectively of Hong Kong and Macao, in order for the two SARs to align with the national development effort.

The policy blueprint sets out clear directions for the integrated development of Macao’s culture and tourism sectors. The Macao SAR Government will treat the culture and tourism development plan as a template for action by Macao, in order to bolster development for those sectors in the city. The aim is better to integrate the city into the national development effort, and advance overall development of the Greater Bay Area.

The Macao SAR Government will join hands with its local government counterparts in the Greater Bay Area in order to advance the Greater Bay Area as a quality location for residence, work and travel.

The culture and tourism development plan will create enormous opportunities for coordinated development for Macao’s culture and tourism sectors. With the strong support of the country, the blueprint will respectively provide greater room for exchange and cooperation within the Greater Bay Area, to Macao workers in the culture and arts sector, and those engaging in cultural and creative industries, as well as to education and training institutions, and tourism operators.

The Macao SAR Government fully agrees with proposals for innovation that are incorporated in the culture and tourism development plan, including its framework for regional exchange, and its concepts for integrating cultural and tourism offerings. The specific tasks, policies, measures and priority actions outlined in the culture and tourism development plan help define the respective inherent advantages of Macao and other Greater Bay Area cities. Such steps will strengthen the policy coordination effort within the Greater Bay Area, and assist in pressing ahead with Macao’s positioning as a multicultural exchange and cooperation base with an emphasis on Chinese culture.

In addition, the culture and tourism development plan bolsters Macao’s two important ‘business cards’, i.e. the Historic Centre of Macao inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, and Macao’s status as a City of Gastronomy, under UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. The culture and tourism development plan also complements Macao’s effort at identifying further distinctive local tourism features and at advancing the planning for a “multi-destination” model for tourism. Such effort is conducive to attracting a greater number of tourists from overseas to visit Macao and other Greater Bay Area cities.

The full text of the culture and tourism development plan is available at the website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (www.mct.gov.cn).

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a city cluster formed by nine cities in Guangdong Province – namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing – plus the Hong Kong SAR and the Macao SAR.