KONG AP HONG KONG Shares in Macao casino operators soared to 13 percent after the special administrative region's chief executive said the Chinese mainland would resume an e-visa scheme for mainland travellers and permit group tours, which could boost the footfall in the world's biggest gambling hub.
The SAR will open to mainland tour groups in November for the first time in almost three years, Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng said on Saturday.
Since 2020, Macao SAR has implemented stringent COVID 19 pandemic restrictions with tight boundary controls, resulting in a major impact on its casino industry.
The announcement came earlier than expected, according to analysts who had predicted that such measures would only be introduced early next year.
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Although it's hard to quantify the immediate benefit, we believe that the resumption of e-visas and group tours should alleviate friction for a Macao trip and signal to many that it's okay to visit, said DS Kim, an analyst at JP Morgan in Hong Kong.
Sands China increased more than 13 percent, Wynn Macau climbed 7 percent, Galaxy Entertainment increased 10 percent, while the shares of SJM and MGM China jumped 8 percent each.
While the border between the mainland and Macao has been open for two years, the traffic has remained sluggish due to the lack of e-visas, which were readily used by mainland visitors prior to the epidemic to make instant bookings.
mainland tourists to Macao need a visa appointment, followed by a week-long approval process. In the year 2019 the individual visa scheme accounted for around 50 percent of mainland visitors to Macao, while tour groups accounted for around 25 percent of the visitation.
In the first phase, tour groups will come from five provinces - Fujian, Jiangsu and Guangdong - which represented almost 60 percent of mainland visits to Macao in 2019.