Macau Business | January 2023 | Special Report | Three years of pandemic – What changed?
Living a in bubble
Some will say ‘it’s only been three years’, while others, fed up with this pandemic, think that three years is too much.
We tried to take both perspectives into account when we set out to understand what has changed in Macau in these three years – and, by the way, we include, at the end of this special report, some situations that have changed in the world but not in Macau.
After all, when did places in the world manage to live in a bubble for three years, while the rest of the world returned to normalcy? Tourism numbers in Europe surpassed last year those of 2019, for example.
What happened in Macau was excellent from a health point of view, but disastrous in economic terms (with all that that means of unemployment or bankruptcies). At the same time, it forced many entrepreneurs to look for alternatives (such as live streaming sales or delivering food by apps).
Macau discovered distance learning, adapted to live with far fewer non-resident workers and resisted vaccines, not knowing how to deal with traditional Chinese medicine remedies: they treat or only prevent?
Macau started to eat at home, abused smartphones and realized that it has a serious problem on its hands: the piles of waste food that accumulate every day is not the fault of tourists, but ours.
Welcome to such new normal.
Co-ordinated by João Paulo Meneses [email protected]
Vaccination hesitancy
Mental health woes
Problematic Smartphone Use
Live streaming sales flourishing
What are we having for dinner, Aomi or mFood?
Dining experiences in an O2O environment has changed the thinking and behaviour of customers, state local researchers.
Non-resident workers, the “expendables” the city needs
The pandemic ended up heightening Macau’s bipolar relationship with its non-resident workers.
The Online teaching conundrum
It was the first time that distance learning was used intensively. Very few were prepared
No tourists, why so much waste?
There are no longer 30 million tourists entering Macau, but solid waste is still too high.
