The National Immigration Administration announced today (11) that the State Council had approved the addition of eight mainland cities to the facilitated individual travel (FIT) scheme, which will be eligible to issue individual travel endorsements for trips to Hong Kong and Macao starting from 27 May.

Communicating closely with the business travel industry in these cities, the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) will strive to publicise Macao’s advantages, including Macao’s business environment, convention, exhibitions and trade industries, and special products from Portuguese-speaking countries and Macao.

The continuous increase in the number of mainland visitors to Macao will contribute to the overall economic development of Macao. According to MICE industry insiders, there is a huge potential demand from visitors brought by the addition of the eight mainland cities to the FIT scheme. They are all provincial capital cities, namely, Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, Hohhot in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, Lhasa in Xizang Autonomous Region, Lanzhou in Gansu Province, Xining in Qinghai Province, Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In addition, as the cities lately added to the FIT scheme this time are far away from Macao, it is believed that there will be more overnight visitors in Macao, who can gain deeper experiences and understanding of Macao’s economic development, facilitating the development of Macao’s tourism, hotel, convention, exhibition and trade industries and related industries.