Pansy Ho: Labour shortage main Macau tourism issue

2014/10/29

From：Macau Business Daily

As the Macau tourism industry expands, companies are struggling to hire people. Pansy Ho said yesterday that the solution for what she considers the biggest challenge to the industry is to allow more foreign workers to come to the SAR

The labour shortage is the main obstacle restricting the development of Macau tourism, the Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the Global Tourism Economy Forum, Pansy Ho, said yesterday in a meeting with journalists during the Forum.
“The labour issue is the biggest challenge. We don’t have enough labour to fulfill our capacity. What is happening in Macau is the reverse of the feeling that if we continue to bring on board foreign labour it’s going to cause unemployment”, she said. “I can’t see that happening. Even employees are saying that they feel the pressure of overworking”.
Pansy Ho said that companies need more ways to resolve this problem, which is also affecting the time required for people in Macau to learn the right skills for their profession and to get qualified.
“We need to expand our job pool. However, we need to find a harmonious and balanced way that they ensures that everybody will win with this. This is what we need to make sure that Macau will continue to grow”, she said.
“The distance between Macau and its neighbouring areas will continue to shrink with the completion of the Hong Hong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and with the completion of the infrastructure of the rail network. Macau will be right at the heart of a 100 million-population base”, she said. “Whether you like it or not, these people are going to come to your doors”.
During the dialogue with the media, the number of non-gaming events in Macau was broached.
“At this moment, if we do that [increase non-gaming activities] we’ll be unsuccessful. The conditions are not right yet for this to achieve success. We can see such success on the horizon by 2017 or 2020, when all this infrastructure [transport connections] are there”, Pansy Ho said.
The MGM China director also stressed that improving the quality of Macau tourism would require courage.
“Macau started at the top level but we need courage to do more and continue to outperform ourselves in order to attract more tourists”, she said. “We’re here in a very comfortable place. I think that if we don’t do anything we’ll be fine. There will still be a lot of people coming to visit these new facilities and go through this experience. But we want more”, she said.

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