Cultural Industries Fund Special Programmes for ‘Mak Mak’ Brand Building

The Cultural Industries Fund (FIC), in co-operation with Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), has jointly launched specific programmes providing financial support for cultural tourism brand building projects for Macao tourism mascot Mak Mak.  

Applicant projects should contain elements of Macao’s cultural tourism relevant to the design concept of Mak Mak, adhering to the purpose of promoting Macao tourism, launching cultural tourism products, and exploring cultural tourism experiences in Macao.

The special funding plan is divided into two categories; namely, ‘exploring cultural tourism products’ and ‘exploring cultural tourism experiences services’. For the Mak Mak cultural tourism product exploration option companies can either independently explore Mak Mak products or co-develop with other brands.

When exploring Macao cultural tourism experience in the use of Mak Mak the project should relate to cultural elements of Macao; namely, Macao World Heritage, new and old buildings, gastronomy, historical monuments, the cultural creative industry, natural landscapes, intangible cultural heritage, festivities and traditions, and so forth. 

The project should combine elements of cultural practice and digital media exhibitions elements such as animation, digital technology (such as augmented reality AR, virtual reality VR, mixed reality MR) and interactive games, and may also employ Mak Mak to explore cultural tourism products.

The project plan should include the concept of design, promotion and marketing plus market analysis regarding the development of cultural tourism products. A further requisite is the inclusion of related production design, while exploring cultural tourism experiences with illustrations or videos of the concept and designs. 

The Project Evaluation Commission will apply the following criteria to their evaluation: functions of the project for the tourism promotion of Macao; building a cultural tourism brand of Macao; underscoring the creativity and originality of Macao’s cultural elements; anticipated economic benefits; objective rationale and feasibility of realisation; budget breakdown; management level and technical capacity of implementation team and their experience - plus rationale of development, production, production strategies and marketing of the project.

Following due selection, ten recipients will be awarded financial support for ‘exploring cultural tourism products’ and two for ‘exploring cultural tourism experiences services’, with a period of execution of 24 months. The financial support limit represents 50 per cent of total project expenditure, with a maximum limit of MOP500000 for ‘exploring cultural tourism products’, and a maximum limit of MOP5 million for ‘exploring services of cultural tourism experiences’. 

The FIC will reimburse actual expenses, while financial support funds must be managed through a specific closed bank account subject to audit by an audit firm in order to ensure that the public coffers are efficiently used.

Detailed information is available (in Chinese and Portuguese) at: http://www.fic.gov.mo/current/subpage.aspx?a_id=1557891290.