Hanging out on weekends, planning to watch a movie with colleagues and friends, three months before, we only had a few choices in Macao: whether going to Cinema Alegria, Cineteatro Macau or the Macau Tower. Now, we have one more choice because recently a new cinema chain has established-the UA cinemas in the Galaxy Resort, which is the first multiplex cinema chain in Macao, is offering a brand new experience of movie watching to the Macao citizens by establishing a modernize cinema chain in Macao.
UA cinemas opened recently at 15th December, 2011, but Macao citizens are familiar with the UA cinemas because it had 27 years history in Hong Kong. According to the official website of Lark International Group, they introduced the UA Cinema brand to Hong Kong in 1985, and is one of the major cinema chains in Hong Kong. In 1997, it started the online ticketing service called Cityline, customers can reserve the ticket through phone calls in 2006; it started the online ticketing service which customers can buy their tickets through the official website of UA cinemas.
The UA Galaxy Cinemas has nine theaters in total, four theaters are the Director Club theaters and the remaining five are the traditional theaters, among the five traditional theaters, the Grand Theater is the largest one which consists of 350 seats.
“The market for Hong Kong has already been saturated,” said the Executive Manager of Galaxy UA Cinemas, Perry Yu. In order to keep the cinema chain developing, UA needs to extend the market by stretching their branches to other places; at the same time, the Galaxy resort noticed the demand for the cinema chain, therefore, Galaxy resort invited UA to start a cinema chain in Macao in order to learn how to run a cinema chain, that makes the appearance of the UA Galaxy Cinemas became possible.
Since the public opening, UA cinemas becomes very popular among local citizens. “We are slightly surprised by the enthusiastic response from the local. According to the experience from Hong Kong, normally it takes around six months to build up its customer loyalty and make the business become more stable.” Yu said, “but the Galaxy UA Cinemas does not need to take this long. In account to the revenue from Christmas to New Year, we are among the top six of the UA cinemas in Macao and Hong Kong,” Yu thinks that it is because of the strong advertisement and the attraction from the Galaxy resort.
The price for the ticket is MOP65 for a 2D movie and MOP95 for a 3D movie; in addition, price for watching a movie in Director Club is MOP175, the price of watching either a 2D or 3D movie is more expensive than other Macao cinemas. Yu thinks that in terms of the facilities that UA Galaxy Cinemas provides, they should charge more but in consideration to their principle, which is to provide an entertaining service to the resort’s guests and local citizens, they decided to set the price at this level.
When asked competitions in Macao, Yu stated confidently that there should not be any competitions because UA cinemas is targeting different audience with the other cinemas in Macao. He said the UA cinemas are targeting the families in Macao and the other cinemas are also having their only advantages, their long history of establishment has created customer loyalty which makes them more competitive.
In the future, Yu said they are going to have many exciting promotions. In the long term, they hope to provide more 3D experiences like playing 3D dramas or concerts in the cinema, and even people can reserve a theater for a meeting; in addition, they also try their best to have a live broadcasting for the World Cup.
Yu thinks that there are not many restrictions in Macao, but the hiring and training of the staff is giving them a hard time. “It is not easy to hire a staff in Macao,” the assistant manager of Galaxy UA cinemas, Rommel Htut said. “Not many people know how to broadcast a film inside the theater, it is much complicated than we play a movie with our desktop, we need to provide training but still not many people are willing to join us. We are working hard on this area, hoping that we can have more people working in this field in the future.”
“Sometimes I find it hard to cheer myself up because I have to do the same task for eight hours a day,” said Vina Su, a general staff working in UA Galaxy cinemas, “but still I will keep doing my job because I am satisfy with my pay.”
Impact to the local
Yu thinks that UA cinemas has brought some impacts to the entire Macao movie industry. The establishment of UA has made the local citizens coming back to the cinemas, as a result, it has extended the market. Yet, it is also beneficial to other cinemas.
“I never go to other cinemas since the opening of the UA cinemas, the seats are much more comfortable than the others” said John Julian Pun, whom had several experience of watching movies in UA cinemas.
“I had never been to cinemas after I married,” said Ben Van, who has marred over 30 years, “I was curious about the UA cinemas so I went there once, it is a comfortable place, but I won’t go there anymore because I would like to watch movie at my own place”
“Cinema is a place for social function, it is a place for friends to hang out with, for a date and for family time.” Yu concluded. “We also bring people back to the cinemas. Sometimes we receive some feedbacks, telling us that they are surprised by the changes of the cinemas because it has changed a lot from 40 years.”