• Subscribe
  • Magazines
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
Wednesday 29 November 2023
    • 中文
IAG
Advertisement
  • Newsfeed
  • Mag Articles
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Tags
  • Regional
    • Africa
    • Australia
    • Cambodia
    • China
    • CNMI
    • Europe
    • Hong Kong
    • India
    • Japan
    • Laos
    • Latin America
    • Malaysia
    • Macau
    • Nepal
    • New Zealand
    • North America
    • North Korea
    • Philippines
    • Russia
    • Singapore
    • South Korea
    • Sri Lanka
    • Thailand
    • Vietnam
  • Events
  • Consulting
  • Contributors
  • SUBSCRIBE FREE
  • 中文
No Result
View All Result
IAG
  • Newsfeed
  • Mag Articles
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Tags
  • Regional
    • Africa
    • Australia
    • Cambodia
    • China
    • CNMI
    • Europe
    • Hong Kong
    • India
    • Japan
    • Laos
    • Latin America
    • Malaysia
    • Macau
    • Nepal
    • New Zealand
    • North America
    • North Korea
    • Philippines
    • Russia
    • Singapore
    • South Korea
    • Sri Lanka
    • Thailand
    • Vietnam
  • Events
  • Consulting
  • Contributors
  • SUBSCRIBE FREE
  • 中文
No Result
View All Result
IAG
No Result
View All Result

After 18 years visiting Macau, 13 years living in Macau and 933 days trapped in Macau, it’s time to go

Andrew W Scott by Andrew W Scott
Mon 12 Sep 2022 at 05:32
After 18 years visiting Macau, 13 years living in Macau and 933 days trapped in Macau, it’s time to go
873
SHARES
21.8k
VIEWS
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

If all goes according to plan over the next 14 hours or so, flight TR905 will begin its take off roll along the single runway of MFM – Macau International Airport – at 7:55pm this evening.

That flight, one of three per week on the humble Scoot airline, will almost certainly take off to the north (as almost all flights out of Macau do), then shortly turn 180 degrees to the south, and begin its over three-hour journey to Singapore’s Changi airport. Singapore is now the epicenter of Asian air travel – having long eclipsed COVID-zero decimated Hong Kong. It also represents the main practical route out of Macau to the wider world.

Assuming all goes to plan, flight TR905 at 7:55pm this evening will represent my own salvation, my “getaway car,” my escape from the incarceration that has been Macau over the past 933 days since 23 February 2020. It was on that day I arrived from London via Zurich and Hong Kong, mere days before the proverbial door was slammed shut behind me courtesy of a little mishap known as the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

How Macau has changed in those 933 days.

In that time, I have barely left a tiny patch of just a few square kilometers – the longest continuous period in a single city in my entire life – including my childhood right back to birth. I haven’t even been able to go to Zhuhai, much less the pipedream of visiting Hong Kong. For someone who loves travel to the point of averaging one flight a week in 2019, it’s been quite the torment.

18 years of Macau
I first set foot in Macau in 2004, shortly after Sands Macao opened its doors. After living in Hong Kong for a few years and visiting Macau regularly, I finally took the plunge and relocated permanently in 2009, to make my home in what was then a wonderful melting pot of east-meets-west. I lived, I loved, I learned. I worked, I played. I even completed a master’s degree at the University of Macau. The casino gaming industry thrived, Macau became king of the world, we all know the story.

But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We wobbled in 2014, fell to our knees in 2015, but then dusted ourselves off and recovered through to 2019. Things were looking good until … well, again, we all know the story. There is no need to repeat it.

The pandemic
Through 2020 and 2021 the world suffered COVID – together. But in 2022 it is different. The rest of the world has moved on, recovered, started to put their lives, their businesses and their economies back together again. They talk of COVID-19 in the past tense. When Macau people reference their own pandemic plight, overseas friends and colleagues answer in a bewildered tone, “Are you guys still doing that?”

I run a business called “Inside Asian Gaming”, not “Inside Macau Gaming.” As long as Macau was the center of the Asian gaming world it made sense to be based in Macau, and to visit the rest of Asia and the world regularly. But Macau is no longer the center of Asian gaming. As explained in the cover story of the August issue of IAG, that center of gravity has now slipped away from Macau and is being picked up by other APAC jurisdictions like the Philippines, Singapore and Australia.

While IAG will remain a Macau company, our office will remain in Macau and our Macau-based staff will continue to do their work right here in Macau, much of the business of the Asian gaming industry is now outside Macau. While networks and relationships built up over the past three decades (and the past decade in particular) stood IAG in good stead through 2020 and 2021, that is simply no longer the case. In order to keep our business afloat it’s imperative for me visit a host of countries as quickly as possible. To name just a few: the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, the US and the UK. I hope to visit all of them and more over the next 12 months.

It is with terribly mixed emotions I leave Macau, on what I am describing to anyone who asks as “a very, very long business trip.” On the one hand I leave the place I have grown to love over the past 13 years and leave our wonderful hard working IAG team behind to “hold the fort.” But on the other hand, I simply must “venture out from the cave” to “hunt the mammoth” given the lack of gaming industry business in Macau. There are some interesting non-gaming opportunities in Macau, particularly in the CSR space, and our parent company O MEDIA is pursuing them. But for IAG, the well is running very dry in the SAR.

Brain drain
It would be remiss of me not to mention the persistent and disquieting brain drain occurring right now in Macau, for in departing Macau I am certainly not the lone ranger. Over the past six months there has been a veritable cavalcade of goodbye drinks, parties, farewells and messages announcing departures from Macau, mainly of foreigners and even quite a few Macau people lucky enough to have links to countries outside Macau.

I put this brain drain down to three quite obvious reasons: the relentless COVID-zero policy of the Macau and central governments with no end in sight, the rising opportunities for skilled industry professionals in other parts of the world, and the general emotional malaise hanging over Macau. Awfully, that malaise is expressing itself in Macau through increased suicide rates, heightened prevalence of domestic violence and all manner of mental health issues.

The situation is even worse for foreigners and the more “worldly” locals, who are coming to the realization that Macau will likely never return to its former economic glory, even post COVID-zero. There is also – and this is a very touchy subject, but since when have I shied away from touchy subjects – a quite obvious undercurrent of anti-foreigner sentiment in Macau. Some would even call it xenophobia.

For just one piece of evidence of this sentiment, one need merely look at the statistics on new residency applications in Macau. In the 2021 year the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) processed 33 such applications, rejecting 32 of them! In a place boasting a population of around 677,000 (down by around 20,000 since the start of the pandemic, mostly through foreign workers losing their jobs), just a single person had their residency application approved. For 2022 Q1, a mere five applications were processed – with all five being rejected. Statistics are only available for the first quarter of this year, despite Q2 finishing over 10 weeks ago. It seems it takes quite some time to count to a single digit number.

It was just last month that Macau lawmakers considered a bill to attract “internationally recognized, high-quality and highly qualified personnel and senior professionals” to Macau. But talk is cheap. I would contend that actions speak louder than words.

Will I be back?
Absolutely. As referenced above, this is merely a “very, very long business trip,” not a complete departure. Officially, I remain based in Macau, as does IAG. But I suspect it may be more than a few months on the road given the many destinations around Asia and the world which must be visited to reconnect with a host of senior industry executives who haven’t had an in-person meeting with IAG for almost three years. One can only do so much by zoom, and ours is an industry built on relationships and human connections that can only really be cemented in person.

To those of you outside Macau, I’m excited to be heading your way and I’ll see you soon.

For those inside Macau, I guess it’s zoom meetings for the foreseeable future, and I will leave you with those beautiful words sung by Dame Vera Lynn, over 80 years ago:

We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where, don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again,
Some sunny day.

Tags: covid-19Inside Asian GamingMacau
Share349Share61
Andrew W Scott

Andrew W Scott

Born in Australia, Andrew is a gaming industry expert and media publisher, commentator and journalist who moved to Hong Kong in 2005 and then Macau in 2009, when he founded O MEDIA, one of Macau’s largest media companies and parent company of Inside Asian Gaming.

Current Issue

Editorial – India: A tale of taxes

Editorial – India: A tale of taxes

by Ben Blaschke
Mon 20 Nov 2023 at 03:00

Boasting the largest population on the planet as of April 2023, India is arguably the single most exciting gaming jurisdiction...

The 2023 Asian Gaming Power 50

The 2023 Asian Gaming Power 50

by Andrew W Scott
Mon 20 Nov 2023 at 02:38

Long established as the definitive list of the most influential figures and personalities in the regional industry, IAG’s Asian Gaming...

2023 Asian Gaming Power 50: Meet the panel

2023 Asian Gaming Power 50: Meet the panel

by Newsdesk
Mon 20 Nov 2023 at 02:02

IAG introduces the eight members of the judging panel who have determined this year’s Asian Gaming Power 50 list.

2023 Asian Gaming Power 50: Number 9 – Patrick Dumont

2023 Asian Gaming Power 50: Number 1 – Francis Lui

by Newsdesk
Mon 20 Nov 2023 at 00:28

Just as Francis Lui and the Galaxy Entertainment Group empire he oversees was best positioned of all Macau concessionaires to...

Softswiss
Evolution Asia
Aristocrat
Megapari
Solaire
Evoplay
Hann
FBM
Lady Luck Games
Okada Manila
IGT
NWR

Related Posts

Light rail station connecting Macau peninsula with Cotai to open on 8 December

Light rail station connecting Macau peninsula with Cotai to open on 8 December

by Pierce Chan
Wed 29 Nov 2023 at 18:17

Macau Light Rail Transit Company Limited (LRT) has revealed that the new Macau Barra station, which connects Taipa with the Macau peninsula, will officially open on 8 December. Barra station began construction in 2018 and has been in the works...

Macau Jockey Club’s accumulated losses climb by another US$25 million in 2022

Macau Jockey Club permanently cancels plan to reduce prize money

by Pierce Chan
Wed 29 Nov 2023 at 18:03

The Macau Jockey Club (MJC) has permanently withdrawn a plan to reduce the prize money it offers its trainers and jockeys. In a written statement sent to Inside Asian Gaming this week in response to questions, MJC said it has...

SOFTSWISS Jackpot Aggregator surpasses €1.5 billion in total bets in 3Q23

SOFTSWISS Jackpot Aggregator surpasses €1.5 billion in total bets in 3Q23

by Newsdesk
Wed 29 Nov 2023 at 12:24

The SOFTSWISS Jackpot Aggregator attracted jackpot bets of more than €1.5 billion (US$1.65 billion) in the three months to 30 September 2023, illustrating the widespread scale of the Aggregator’s operations across connected projects, according to operator SOFTSWISS. The figure, SOFTSWISS...

Solving stream delay vital to growing eSports betting industry

Fast-paced esports betting content in Asia: Peculiarities and Opportunities 

by Newsdesk
Wed 29 Nov 2023 at 12:13

Inside Asian Gaming speaks with Evgeniy Bekker, Esports General Manager at leading betting content and data provider BETER, about the growth of esports across Asia and opportunities for operators in the region. IAG: Asia is currently the leading region for...



IAG

© 2005-2023
Inside Asian Gaming.
All rights reserved.

  • SUBSCRIBE FREE
  • NEWSFEED
  • MAG ARTICLES
  • VIDEO
  • OPINION
  • TAGS
  • REGIONAL
  • EVENTS
  • CONSULTING
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • MAGAZINES
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • ADVERTISE

No Result
View All Result
  • 中文
  • Subscribe
  • Newsfeed
  • Mag Articles
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Tags
  • Regional
  • Events
  • Contributors
  • Consulting
  • Magazines
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • About

© 2005-2023
Inside Asian Gaming.
All rights reserved.

  • 中文
  • English