Ian Yeoman on TDM Talk Show: Macau can shape its tourism future

Macau, year 2050: the city is a top-end destination, marked by luxury and environmentally friendly tourism. It has ostentatious hotels and adult entertainment, and although still economically feasible, it has fewer tourists, due to prices or visa controls that shape the kind of visitors to the Territory.
Tourism Futurology professor Ian Yeoman doesn’t have a crystal ball to gaze into, but this is the future he predicts for Macau, thirty years from now. Appearing on last weekend’s TDM Talk Show, the Tourism Management professor of New Zealand’s Victoria University believes we will see “some fundamental shifts”.
“The consumer will still fundamentally be from China. But that consumer will be a lot more conscious of the environment – more environmentally friendly –, will be a lot more educated, and will have higher standards. I think Macau will probably go further at market and be more luxury. It will be a combination of both eco-tourism and pretty much about materialistic environment. I see the future of tourism in Macau very much at the top end of the market. Therefore, you will probably create more space for that market,” Ian Yeoman foresees.
According to the professor’s projection for Macau, “hotels will still be very ostentatious, very materialistic”, but there will probably be “fewer tourists”, because the city will be concentrating more on wealth than on volume.
But how will Macau be able to shape its tourists’ profile? Ian Yeoman said it could use price as a determinant for people coming here. “For example, you may be like Bhutan, which charges USD 250 per day per tourist. So you may have a tax on how much the tourists can spend per day, for example. And that would be a way to control the number of tourists that will be coming here. But also try to keep the economic value here,” he suggested, adding that there could also be visa controls. Such controls would be more high-tech, possibly through an  embedded microchip, since he admits that by 2050, passports might be “a thing of the past”.
The professor believes “there are a number of possibilities for the future of Macau” and the city can shape its own future. It just has to “create a vision” of what it wants to be and focus on a desired tourist profile. But the professor predicts Macau “will always be an adult destination”, it will “not be about families or children”. “I still think it will fundamentally be about gaming, retail, and culture. But [it will be] a very good product within those dimensions, because that’s where its history is and that’s where people’s perceptions are,” he argued, adding that Las Vegas made “ a big mistake” several years ago when it decided to become a family destination. The professor’s recommendation for Macau: “whatever you decide you’re going to be, you have to be the best of the best. Very good at gaming, very good at conventions.”

Fundamental shifts

Author of the recently published book “Tomorrow’s tourists: scenarios and trends”, Ian Yeoman predicts that by 2030, there will be 1.9 billion international arrivals, spending two trillion US dollars. The futurist also said that “China is fundamentally shifting, fundamentally changing” and by 2030 will be the world’s largest tourism destination.
“In 1986, if you take the top 5 cities of China, they said two percent of Chinese consumers could be classified as lower middle class or better,” but a forecast predicts that by 2025, “for those top 5 cities”, “96 percent of Chinese people living in those cities will be lower middle class or better”. A significant shift, the professor argued, saying that “it’s about purchasing power” and a “very consumer orientated” rising middle class, who is purchasing cars, houses, and things for the home, but, at the same time, “getting more time for leisure and therefore travelling”.

The role of technology

Technology also plays a significant role in the way people interact and respond to tourism advertising. Mobile phones are an example of that. “It’s made the society an instant, faster society in terms of transactions and information sourcing, and that changes how we make decisions about tourism. For example, in Tokyo, 30 percent of hotel reservations are on the day of arrival through the mobile phone.”
According to the professor, new tourism consumers are more individualistic. “They don’t trust authority, they don’t trust marketing and advertising and they have a tendency to switch off to it.” They also are “four times more price sensitive than they were ten years ago”, so they use the Internet to do a lot of price comparison. That’s why, he said, tourist organizations “have had to change their strategies”. “The number one influence on ‘where do I go on holidays?’ will always be friends and family”, but younger generations tend “to use a multitude of different sources”.