Standard viewpoint: Carry on, Hong Kong

HONG KONG – An interesting New Year’s editorial in The Standard newspaper in Hong Kong looks at the development of Macau – and while praising some aspects of the new gambling mecca, it also has some strong reservations about Macau’s hospitality service delivery.

The writer praises Macau for doing a good job this decade. “Development has been massive, but the new bridges are elegant, the city shines at night from across the new lakes and the old seaside Praia Grande and Avenida da Republica have been preserved as best they could by using the man-made lakes as buffers.

“Much else has been preserved. The food is still good, and the holiday- trimmed colonial downtown provided a Christmas that – unlike our own (Hong Kong) rather more gaudy and often incongruous downtown decorations – actually looked the part.

“The impression is of a reasonably well-thought-out and implemented business plan. Of course, few places, least of all Hong Kong, can emulate Macau because the development is largely mono-industrial: gambling and the massive increases in tourism that came with it.

“But that was the hand Macau was dealt, and it has apparently played it well.

“But I also came away confident that Hong Kong is still operating at an altogether different level. Yes, Macau has a number of new, high-end hotels, a quite astounding number of brand name shops and unrivalled entertainment options (if one considers gambling entertaining).

“But while visitors to Hong Kong zip through an increasingly automated immigration process, the Macau ferry terminal is a scene of shameful bedlam.

“If Macau wants serious convention business, it will need a far wider range of direct international flights.

“And although a single night is a small statistical sample, the difficulties encountered at the hotel were such that they indicated systematic problems.

“I don’t usually name the offending party, but in order not to unfairly brand the entire sector, I will this time: the Wynn does not seem to understand that five- star service is more than bedrooms with huge TVs.

“I received the distinct impression that the computer systems didn’t work properly or that the staff didn’t know how to use them.

“Our four-room party was split into different wings of the hotel, children separated from parents, guests sent off to the wrong wing. And straightening it all out took the best part of an hour, at no time during which were we offered seats or refreshments.

“Hong Kong hotels of that class treat walk-ins, to say nothing of actual paying guests, with more professionalism. This is, I think, not just a matter of training, but long-standing tradition.

“It is going to take Macau quite a long time, in my view, before it reaches the level of faultless service that the higher- added-value visitors in Asia now take for granted.

“There is, in addition, somewhat less to all these new developments than meets the eye. The Venetian, in spite of the gondolas in swimming-pool-tile- lined canals, is little more than a shopping mall.

“Some people like that sort of thing, but the artificiality gives it a downmarket feel, something unlikely to improve as the paint on the stucco begins to discolor and chip.

“Although standards are something that can be raised, Macau is nevertheless in danger of losing its soul and becoming “just another Chinese city,” albeit one with casinos.

“Heritage is more than buildings: it is language and traditions.

“Although a valiant effort is made to display Portuguese prominently on public signs, there is none of the old Macau in the new, only distorted echoes of Venice, Rome and Atlantic City.

“Hong Kong is larger and its cosmopolitan traditions form a more inalienable part of our daily life. Hong Kong’s appeal, touristic and otherwise, stems from what it always has been, not from what it feels forced to develop into.

“A good New Year’s resolution would be to stop looking over our shoulder.”

Source: The Standard

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