Macau Tower

Macau Tower

Macau Tower is located at Lot 1, Area D, New Reclamation Zone, Nam Van, covering an area of 13,363 square meters. The first phase involves the construction of a approximately 338-meter-tall Macau Sightseeing Tower, and the second phase includes the development of an entertainment center. The developer is Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, S.A. On July 30, 1998, the Macau government granted a land lease term of 25 years, renewable until December 19, 2049. The commercial section of the sightseeing tower spans 3,675 square meters, and the service section covers 4,370 square meters; the total construction area of the entertainment center is 42,188 square meters, with the second and third floors of the basement used as parking lots.

Macau’s new landmark — Macau Sightseeing Tower — cost a total of 1 billion MOP to build. Construction began in 1998 and, after three years, the tower was completed and unveiled on December 19, 2001, officially opening to visitors. Edmund Ho Hau Wah, Chief Executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region, and Stanley Ho Hung-sun, General Manager of Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, S.A., lit up the tower. Since then, Macau Sightseeing Tower has become a new tourism attraction in Macau, greatly boosting the development of its tourism industry. At the time of its groundbreaking, Macau's economy was severely impacted by the Asian financial crisis, but Stanley Ho, a renowned Macau industrialist, responded proactively. He was optimistic about Macau’s post-handover market and resolutely invested in constructing this sightseeing tower.

Macau Sightseeing Tower combines sightseeing, conferences, and entertainment, and is one of the world’s top ten observation towers. The tower's top floor features a large revolving restaurant, offering panoramic views of the entire city. From the tower’s observation deck, both Macau and Zhuhai are fully visible, and on clear days, Hong Kong’s Lantau Island can also be seen. In addition, the tower houses exhibition and conference facilities, themed restaurants, high-end shopping centers, a theater, an open-air plaza, and a seaside promenade. The tower is the eighth tallest in the world and, surpassing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, is the tallest steel observation tower in Southeast Asia. This 338-meter-high tower, which offers views of Hong Kong and parts of the Pearl River Delta, is hailed as Macau’s new iconic structure.

Named “Macau Tower,” the sightseeing tower is located in Macau’s Nam Van New Reclamation Zone, facing the mouth of the Pearl River. The tower’s three high-speed elevators whisk visitors up to the public observation level at 223 meters in just 50 seconds. Within the fully glass-enclosed observation level, not only are all of Macau’s major sights visible, but nearby islands such as Hengqin, across the water, and Zhuhai’s urban area, connected to the Macau Peninsula, also appear within arm’s reach. On clear days, visibility is so good that visitors can even see Hong Kong’s Lantau Island and some outlying islands dozens of kilometers away.

Looking down from the top of the tower, the Macau Peninsula and the two islands of Taipa and Coloane appear like lotus flowers floating on emerald waters, with landmarks such as Guia Hill, Bank of China Tower, and Grand Lisboa scattered across the landscape. Beneath the two milky-white cross-sea bridges, passing ships look like tiny stars, tracing arcs on the sea’s surface. The biggest highlight of the Macau Tower observation deck is its partially transparent glass floor. Although the reinforced glass is 4 centimeters thick to ensure safety, seeing the sea, roads, and buildings over 200 meters below can still send shivers down many visitors’ spines. Some say walking on this glass floor is truly like “walking on air.”

Supporting facilities at the base of the tower include large-scale conference, exhibition, entertainment, dining, theater, and shopping venues. These include a banquet hall that can accommodate 1,200 guests and a 500-seat theater. Stanley Ho (with three fire radical characters and a wood radical), General Manager of Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, S.A., who invested in the construction of the tower, said at the unveiling ceremony that choosing to open the tower today is a “special tribute” to the second anniversary of Macau’s return to the motherland. He added that the completion of the tower adds a new tourism product to Macau and will help attract more visitors.