Reading the news this morning, I saw that this year’s Forbes Travel Guide stated that Macau has 18 five-star spas, far surpassing Hong Kong’s five and Las Vegas’s four, taking first place worldwide.
Beyond the sense of pride, I immediately thought: why do so many friends in Macau have a habit of going to Zhuhai at weekends for massages? And that contrast made me think about a bigger problem.
Bangkok is the “massage capital” in many people’s minds not because of the number of luxury hotel spas it has, but because the whole city has a complete massage ecosystem — from 200-baht foot massages on the street to five-star hotel spas, every level has clear information, huge numbers of reviews, and easy booking. Moreover, the image of massages and spas in that city includes both the five-star segment and the mass market, allowing the whole city, from the streets to the hotels, to benefit and take its share.
And Macau? Its 18 five-star spas are all hidden inside the major gaming operators, with spending easily reaching hundreds or thousands of patacas. But if you want to find a clean, affordable, well-reviewed street massage shop in Taipa or NAPE, the information depends on Google and, because these places are not well known, few people actively look for them. As a result, foreign tourists either go to the gaming operators or give up; local residents, meanwhile, have developed the habit of going to Zhuhai to spend — because mainland Chinese platforms offer clear information, abundant options, and prices lower than those in Macau.
So those 18 five-star spas that top the global rankings have placed Macau on the international map, but they have not brought even one extra customer to the massage shops in Taipa or NAPE, and the money has not flowed into local communities. In economics, there is a term for this: “trickle-down effect failure” — prosperity exists, but its benefits remain concentrated at the top of the pyramid and do not flow through the city’s capillaries.
Macau’s local massage shops will not be chosen by the Forbes Travel Guide because they are not five-star establishments. But the paradox is that those same 18 five-star spas have also failed to make Macau a true “spa capital” — because between the aura at the top and the small street shops, no ecosystem has been formed that allows people to find information and make choices. The showcases are showcases, the capillaries are capillaries, and they are not connected.
This problem is not limited to the spa industry. It concerns whether the dividends of this city’s prosperity flow into every street, every small shop, and the lives of ordinary citizens.
I call this problem “Two Macaus” — one that shines brightly in the rankings, and another that quietly survives on the corners. Both exist at the same time, and it is becoming harder and harder to pretend we do not see them.
