Macao on Monday welcomed its first tour group traveling to the city as new visa arrangements took place, allowing mainland visitors to cross the Hengqin-Macao border multiple times.
The group consisted of 16 travelers, mostly from neighboring Guangdong Province. Their Macao-Hengqin trip will last three days and two nights - one night in Macao and the other on the island.
Starting from Monday, visitors from the Chinese mainland who sign up for tour groups can make multiple trips between Macao and Hengqin through the Hengqin Port within the visa validity period (seven days) after the first entry into Macao.
"Customs clearance between the two places is more convenient, which will help further integrate the development of the travel sector between the two places in the future and can also attract more tourists to Macao and to its communities to learn about its history, culture and customs," said Zhuang Weizhong, a tour guide.
Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, was waiting at the Hengqin checkpoint to hand out souvenirs to the tourists. She said the new rules embody the central government's support for Macao's development.
"The central government has positioned Macao as a world tourism and leisure center, so we must make good use of the favorable policies, including this new measure that can bring Macao closer to Hengqin," she said.
"This reflects the central government's care for the development of Macao's tourism, the building of a world tourism and leisure center and the efforts to appropriately diversify the economy," said Zhang Jianzhong, president of the Macao Hoteliers Association.
First Macao-Hengqin tour group arrives amid multiple-entry visas enforcement
The endangered Tibetan antelopes have started their annual mass migration after the first batch of 47 female Tibetan antelopes passed through the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province on May 7.
To protect the rare species that are under top-class state protection, the management team of Hoh Xil in the province's Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has set up the Wudaoliang protection station along the migration route. As of noon on Sunday, over 700 Tibetan antelopes had been spotted passing through the station.
The Tibetan antelope, known as the "fairies of the plateau", undertakes a migration from May to July each year. Female antelopes from the Sanjiangyuan region of Qinghai, parts of Qiangtang Terrane in Tibet, and the Arjin Mountains in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, would travel to the Zhuonai Lake in Hoh Xil to give birth before returning to their original habitats with their newborns.
"For Tibetan antelopes, we divide them into six species groups according to their geographical distribution. For example, Qinghai and Xinjiang have one group each. For Xizang (Tibet), there are three species groups in the east, central and west of the Qiangtang Terrane. And there is also one group in southern Qiangtang Terrane, which don't migrate," said Lian Xinming, researcher at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
With an average altitude of over 4,600 meters, the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve is known as a "no-life zone" due to its thin air and low oxygen levels.
However, it is an important habitat for Tibetan antelopes, which can reach top speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour while running. Lian explained the reasons behind the antelopes' remarkable speed.
"I think one of the reasons why they run so fast is that they've got underfur. The warmth of its underfur is one of the characteristics of its ability to adapt to alpine cold and high altitudes. The diameter of its fur can be as thin as about one-seventh of our human hair on the temples. Secondly, its has been found in physiology that the hemoglobin of Tibetan antelope has a blood oxygen capacity that is more than 30 percent higher than that of other plain animals, which proves that the same number of red blood cells has stronger ability to carry oxygen. That should enable the Tibetan antelope to reach 70 or 80 kilometers per hour in a short time," Lian said.
After years of conservation efforts, the Tibetan antelope population in the Hoh Xil region has increased from less than 20,000 in the late 1980s to currently over 70,000.
Tibetan antelopes on migration journey to Hoh Xil Nature Reserve
