China introduces online visas to boost Macau tourism

China is making a course-correction in the way it wants to treat Macau and COVID-19 in general as the country’s immigration authorities, the National Immigration Administration, revealed that it is scrapping in-person visa applications to Macau and replacing them with a streamlined online system that is known as eVisas.

This system is valid from Tuesday, November 1, and it will allow the country to issue visas quickly and efficiently and exert additional control over who goes to Macau and for what reason. The National Immigration Administration has been emboldened by the "stability" of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) referring to the lack of COVID-19 infections.

However, the SAR had to undergo mass testing for all its 700,000 residents and guests, with the MGM Cotai hotel and casino put on lockdown after one of the staffers was discovered to had contracted COVID-19.

According to the organizaiton, switching from in-person applications to the online versions is in the "interest" of "economic and social development," meaning that Beijing could be becoming a little milder on its zero-COVID policy which has undoubtedly had a tremendous impact on the economy.

As one hairdresser interviewed by The Economist said, "the uncut hair cannot be made up for," alluding to the fact that some economic loss cannot be recovered. However, the eVisa system would not necessarily be available to everyone, the administration warned. The same goes for the billions lost in revenue by casinos in the SAR, which are just "gap years" for the companies.

In cases someone lived or travelled to a place where COVID-19 infections were a mid to high risk, those people would not be able to benefit from the eVisas regime. The system is designed to ensure that China remains in control of how the disease is transmitted, and ideally eliminate its transmission completely.

Meanwhile, casinos in Macau are hoping that the renewed flow of tourists will help them bolster their results towards the end of the year. This week, there could be even more ground-breaking revelations as it’s possible for the six casino licenses to be awarded between the seven companies that are now trying to secure one.

However, China’s aversion to letting its own citizens gamble could overshadow early optimism, which is no doubt supressed by the COVID-19 pandemic already.

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