Visiting Macau

[Benny Lava]

Many of you might not have heard of Macau, many might have started hearing about it more recently but the fact is that Macau is steadily gaining prominence as a must visit tourist destination in South East Asia. Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China (just like Hong Kong). It is best known as Asia's largest destination for gambling taking in even more revenue than Las Vegas.


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More and more Indians are visiting Macau every year, especially after attracting some attention during the IIFA awards conducted here two years back. The International Indian Film Awards were held at The Venetian Macau Casino in June 2009, and received widespread media coverage within India and across the Indian diaspora. In February 2009, Macau received only 1,507 package tourists from India. Following the IIFA awards in February 2010, there were 5,194—a 244% increase year on year. There are even talks of filming some Bollywood films as well in Macau Casino's in near future.

Planning for a Visit:
Macau is a very small country. Eventhough it is considered to be the Las Vegas of the east, the primary tourist activity is only Gambling, other entertainment options outside Gambling and Casinos are limited. They are slowly coming up but the variety is still no match for Vegas.

So for the options available to an average tourist, it might be worth considering a 2 day trip to Macau even though one day trip (and one night, no point in coming to Macau without exploring the night life here) would also be quite sufficient. So the best option would be to club it together with a trip to Hong Kong or other destinations nearby such as below:

Macau-Hongkong-Shenzhen
Macau-Shenzhen-Shanghai-Beijing

Visa Requirements:
Macau is one of the few countries which still grant Visa on arrival to Indian passport holders. On arrival you get a Visa valid for 30 days. If you travel to Hong kong and re-enter Macau it can be extended for up to 90 days. If Hong Kong is also there on your itinerary, no worries. Hong Kong gives on arrival visa for up to 15 days. On the other hand if you want to enter Chinese cities, you will have to obtain Visa prior to arrival.

Apart from India, Macau also grants Visa on Arrival to several country passport holders. So Visa is mostly not a concern to enter Macau.