After a decade-long hiatus, popular reality TV cooking competition series “MasterChef Asia” has finally returned, with its newest season filmed entirely in Macau, both indoors and outdoors.
Comprising a total of 10 episodes and 10 contestants, the production began filming earlier this month, with the series set to present Macau’s distinct “tourism + gastronomy” appeal to a broader audience in multiple international visitor source markets, as well as raise the city’s profile abroad while promoting gastronomic cultural exchange, according to Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
The series from Banijay Rights, the global distribution arm of Banijay Entertainment, is produced by Warner Bros. Discovery and CreAsia Studio (part of Endemol Shine India) in partnership with MGTO.
Macau’s “celebrated culinary scene and its development as a Creative City of Gastronomy provides a fitting location for the series that will showcase the destination’s unique profile and diverse ‘tourism +’ offerings to a wide international audience,” the local tourism office has pointed out.
With nearly 500 years of east-meets-west cultural heritage, Macau has a vibrant dining scene ranging from popular street food stalls to Michelin-starred restaurants, making gastronomy one of the city’s top tourism attractions, a perfect setting for the popular reality TV show, which will introduce the SAR to an international audience across several platforms, including on TLC, Discovery, as well as the Asian Food Network in India, Southeast Asia, Greater China and Korea, in addition to Lala TV in Japan and the Fatafeat channel in the Middle East.
This exposure is expected to help create more travel intention to Macau and reinforce the city’s branding, according to MGTO.
Launched in 1990, MasterChef is a global hit created by Franc Roddam with various versions created in different parts of the world. To date, the show – recognised by Guiness World Records as the “Most Successful Cookery Television Format” – has been commissioned in 72 markets, aired over 700 seasons and more than 16,000 episodes.
Source and Photo: MGTO
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